'mi 


m^::^- 


Columbia  Slnttiem'tp 

THE  LIBRARIES 


^j)  9lnna  Kofaceon  ^urr 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY.    Large  crown 8vo, $2.00, 
net.     Postage  extra. 

THE    JESSOP    BEQUEST.      With    frontispiece, 
lamo,  J1.50,  / 

HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN   COMPANY 
Boston  and  New  York 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

A  CRITICAL  AND  COMPARA- 
TIVE  STUDY  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^ 

BY 

ANNA  ROBESON  BURR 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

(Cte  IliitErjriDe  pre?^  Cambridge 

1909 


COPYRIGHT,    1909,    BY   ANNA   ROBESON   BURR 


ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


Published  October  igog 


PREFACE 

No  one  will  deny  that  the  pleasure  of  writing  such  a 
book  as  this  depends  very  largely  on  one's  experience  of 
libraries  and  of  librarians.  In  this  respect,  the  writer 
has  been  not  a  little  fortunate.  To  Mr.  George  Maurice 
Abbot,  Mr.  Knoblauch,  and  staff,  of  the  Philadelphia 
Library,  and  to  Dr.  Morris  Jastrow,  Miss  Gawthorp,  and 
staff,  of  the  Library  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania 
her  thanks  are  due,  first  and  foremost,  in  the  warmest 
measure.  There  has  not  been  a  moment  during  the 
entire  journey  when  her  most  unreasonable  demands 
have  not  been  met  with  cheerfulness,  and  she  has 
been  urged  upon  her  way  with  books  in  every  lan- 
guage. The  names  of  these  institutions,  and  of  their 
benign  directors,  are  surely  to  be  found  engraven  upon 
her  heart.  Other  debts  there  are  to  be  acknowledged. 
Thanks  are  due  Mr.  Bunford  Samuel  for  his  special  aid 
in  search  through  the  hoarded  riches  of  the  Loganian. 
The  writer  turns  also  with  gratitude  to  Dr.  Francis  B. 
Gummere,  of  Haverford  College,  who  knows  so  well 
how  to  communicate  to  the  student  the  spirit  of  his 
enthusiasm  and  his  ideals.  As  for  that  best  friend,  who 
has  been  ever  at  hand  to  aid,  whether  to  encourage  or 


vi  PREFACE 

to  restrain;  who  has  never  lacked  conviction,  —  to  him, 
indeed,  the  debt  is  one  the  writer  would  not  discharge 
if  she  could.  It  represents  but  part  of  an  increasing 
burden  of  obligation,  under  which  she  is  joyfully 
content  to  rest. 


CONTENTS 

Part  I 

I.    Introductory  3 

II.    Classification  and  the  Autobiographi- 
cal Intention  13 

III.  History  31 

IV.  Sincerity  43 

V.    The  Autobiography,  the  Diary,  and 

THE  Letter  56 

VI.    The  Three  Great  Archetypes  74 

VII.    Jerome   Cardan's   "De  Vita  Propria 

Liber"  86 

VIII.    Influence  and  Imitation  129 

IX.    The  Autobiography  in   its  Relation 

TO  Fiction  148 

X.    The  Autobiographical  Group  169 

Part  II 

XI.    Nationality  and  Profession  191 

XII.    Memory  212 

XIII.    Religion  228 


XIV. 

The  Nervous  Systems  of  the  Past 

266 

XV. 

The  Relations  of  the  Sexes 

288 

XVI. 

Humor 

314 

XVII. 

Self-Esteem 

331 

XVIII. 

Work  and  Aims 

352 

XIX. 

Genius  and  Character 

376 

XX. 

Conclusion 

401 

APPENDIX : 

409 

A.  Reasons  for  Writing 

411 

B.  Groups  of  Autobiographers 

413 

C.  Professions  and  Occupations 

422 

D.  Memories 

424 

E.  Bibliography  of  Autobiographical 

Writings  425 

INDEX  441 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
PART  I 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY: 

A   CRITICAL   AND    COMPARATIVE   STUDY 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Reasons  for  undertaking  an  inquiry  into  any  depart- 
ment of  literature  are  not  far  to  seek;  it  were  perhaps 
banal  to  dwell  upon  them.  Upon  most  of  us  the  liter- 
ary and  personal  charm  of  the  memoir  and  the  auto- 
biography has  long  laid  hold.  Any  aspect  of  the  human 
creature  has  its  poignant  interest.  But  only  as  chance 
willed,  in  the  hurried  moments  of  choice  upon  a  library 
shelf,  have  we  now  and  again  found  an  acquaintance  or 
gained  a  friend.  The  attempt  in  the  following  pages 
has  been,  first  of  all,  to  carry  the  reader  more  easily  into 
the  midst  of  a  broad  and  general  society.  With  him 
we  have  planned  to  meet  a  number  of  interesting  men 
and  women  of  high  and  low  degree,  of  many  professions 
and  occupations;  and  the  significant  thing  is  that  we 
are  to  meet  them  just  as  we  would  meet  them  in 
life.  Under  the  same  impressions,  and  with  the  same 
reticences;  -with,  the  same  small  graces,  poses  and  insin- 
cerities, such  as  tend  to  vanish  as  we  become  better 


4  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

acquainted,  we  shall  meet  them;  and  yet  always  with 
that  one  privilege,  which  life  itself  might  not  have 
granted  us,  the  opportunity  to  make  them  our  friends. 
This  the  printed  page  has  done  for  them  and  us;  this 
is,  after  all,  the  one  clear  benefit  of  their  having  written 
their  lives  for  us,  that  they  have  thus  perpetuated  our 
opportunity,  so  that  death  has  not  deprived  us  of  a 
friend. 

Here  we  may  choose  friendship  as  we  should  choose 
it  in  life,  you  one,  I  another;  you  Augustin,  let  us  say, 
and  I  Alfieri.  And  it  is  in  order  that  you  may  meet 
your  friend,  from  whom  business,  environment,  or  the 
irritating  futilities  of  the  card-catalogue,  have  separated 
you  hitherto;  that  you  may  not  pass  through  the  world 
without  him  any  longer,  that  these  pages  have,  first 
of  all,  been  written. 

That  a  thoughtful  observer  of  people  should  tend  to 
make  comparisons  of  individual  character  and  thus 
draw  his  conclusions  as  to  the  laws  undertying  human 
nature,  is  almost  a  truism  to  the  sociologist.  As  one 
advances  in  the  study  of  autobiography,  as  document 
after  document  lies  before  one,  as  acquaintances  multi- 
ply and  friend  after  friend  is  made,  the  importance  to 
science,  the  value  to  psychology,  of  such  a  self-revela- 
tion of  humanity,  is  brought  home  to  the  most  un- 
scientific of  literary  students.  Perceptions  of  certain 
truths  become  inevitable;  the  logic  of  certain  conclu- 
sions carries  its  own  force.     And,  as  he  reads,  the 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

student  seems  to  become  a  passive  spectator  rather 
than  an  active  enquirer.  So,  at  least,  has  it  been  with 
the  present  writer.  A  task  begun  in  the  enthusiastic 
spirit  of  pure  friendliness,  with  some  wish,  perhaps,  of 
providing  congenial  readers  with  a  sort  of  catalogue 
raisonne  of  the  more  important  and  agreeable  memoirs, 
has  developed  wider  hopes.  Details  concerning  many 
of  these  matters  which  to-day  especially  occupy  the 
psychologists'  attention,  were  found  in  abundance,  and, 
having  been  found,  tended  to  comment  upon  or  to 
confirm  one  another.  The  obscure  and  important  ques- 
tions of  the  subjective  tendency  in  private  history,  of 
the  standards  of  sincerity,  and  of  the  relative  value 
of  the  deliberate  self-study  and  the  unconscious  self- 
revelation,  offered  themselves  as  novel  and  fascinating 
paths  for  the  reader's  foot;  and  the  fact  that  no 
authoritative  statements  have  previously  been  made 
upon  the  subjective  autobiography,  has  acted  as  a 
challenge. 

Many  writers  have  been  critics  or  commentators  upon 
the  personal  record,  many  have  had  that  partiality  for 
the  memoir  ''which  in  me  amounts  to  a  passion,"  as 
John  Addington  Symonds  ^  has  declared  it.  That 
Symonds  was  aware  of  the  work  to  be  done  in  this  field 
is  shown  by  the  incomparable  distinction  and  accuracy 
of  his  translations,  and  by  his  passing  reference  to 
the  "case  of  misinterpreted  observation,"  in  Cellini,  to 
^  Introduction  to  the  Memoirs  of  Carlo  Gozzi. 


6  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

which  we  shall  again  refer.  But  our  obligations  to  him 
end  there.  No  writer  has  shown  a  keener  sense  of  the 
friendliness  of  the  memoir,  yet  of  the  possibilities  under- 
lying a  comparative  study  of  such  documents,  he  is 
unaware.  In  the  same  manner  we  find  the  idea  of 
comparative  study  wholly  absent  from  the  work  of  that 
Frenchman  who  shared  the  passion,  and  who  pursued 
the  memoir e  during  his  literary  life  with  all  the  hunter's 
and  collector's  ardor.  We  mean,  of  course,  Sainte- 
Beuve.  No  reader  of  the  Causeries  or  of  the  Nou- 
veaux  Lundis  needs  to  be  reminded  of  the  proportion 
of  such  books  discussed  therein.  In  works  of  refer- 
ence the  phrase  ''  Consulter  Ste.-Beuve  "  is,  again  and 
again,  the  only  bibliographical  note.  Yet,  Sainte- 
Beuve  never  lays  those  cases  side  by  side  with  a  view  to 
any  comparison  of  the  individual,  or  to  any  definite 
line  of  investigation.  The  same  points  do  not  recur  to 
him  in  succession  during  each  critique;  his  analyses, 
undertaken  from  different  aspects,  might  often  lead 
one  wrongly  to  suppose  the  objects  wholly  deficient  in 
points  of  contact.  With  all  his  great  allusiveness, 
direct  comparisons  are,  broadly  speaking,  few.  Each 
essay  is  separate  and  complete;  it  carries  all  the  force 
and  exercises  all  the  fascination  due  to  this  critical  and 
exclusive  treatment.  No  one  can  doubt  that  the  value 
of  Sainte-Beuve's  work  is  increased  by  his  ability  to 
give  himself  up,  in  entire  sympathy,  to  one  subject  at 
a  time;  but  it  is  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the  fact  in 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

explanation  of  what  would  otherwise  seem  vieux  jeu. 
His  name  is  the  foremost,  and  rightly,  to  occur  to  any- 
one opening  a  book  which  professes  to  treat  of  the 
memoire,  domestic,  historical,  or  religious,  who,  there- 
fore, would  be  incUned  to  greet  the  attempt  with  a 
disconcerting  "why?  " 

Why,  then,  the  critical  work  of  such  writers  as 
Symonds  and  Sainte-Beuve  does  not  forestall  the  ob- 
ject of  the  present  study,  —  and  it  has  not  done  so 
in  any  particular,  —  is  a  question  to  be  reasonably 
satisfied  before  one  proceeds  further.  In  the  first  place, 
there  was  much  less  temptation  to  the  critic  of  the 
early  nineteenth  century,  to  utilize  his  material  as  an 
aid  to  science.  We  forget,  so  rapidly  do  we  assimilate 
results,  that  psychology,  as  we  now  know  it  was  not  then 
in  being  to  jog  Sainte-Beuve's  elbow  with  a  constant 
appeal  to  workers  in  all  these  fields  for  more  facts.  The 
suggestiveness  of  the  modern  psychological  laboratory 
was  wholly  lacking  to  the  historian  and  the  antiquarian. 
There  was  no  more  than  a  hint  that  along  certain  lines 
criticism  might  approach  research.  Had  there  been, 
no  doubt  the  deepest-dyed  litterateur  would  have  seen 
the  opportunity  afforded  by  this  mass  of  various  com- 
mentary. That  Sainte-Beuve  has  not  done  so,  is  of  use 
as  a  reminder  of  the  youth  of  the  whole  tendency.  So 
entirely  has  modern  psychology  revolutionized  the 
teaching  of  what  used  to  be  called  metaphysics,  that 
one  forgets  this  science  is  hardly  fifty  years  old. 


8  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

It  is  natural  that  all  science  should  begin  at  the 
beginning;  the  child  and  the  savage  have  received 
hitherto  the  major  part  of  the  psychologist's  attention. 
Recently  there  has  been  a  sporadic  outburst  of  interest 
in  man  as  he  is  at  the  very  latest  moment,  with  theo- 
retical explanations  of  his  present  condition  and  theo- 
retical forecasts  of  his  future  tendency.  The  work  of 
Nordau,  Lombroso,  and  others,  belongs  to  this  class,  as 
do  certain  late  sociological  and  pathological  studies. 
But,  as  a  whole,  the  evolution  of  modern  man,  —  of 
man,  that  is,  since  he  has  assumed  the  civilized  aspect 
with  which  we  are  familiar,  and  the  mental  and  emo- 
tional development  which  we  may  regard  with  res- 
pect, —  has  been  very  scantily  handled.  There  are 
cogent  reasons  for  this  neglect. 

*'The  formation  of  the  mental  constitution  of  a 
people,"  says  Gustave  Le  Bon,^  ''does  not  demand,  as 
does  the  creation  of  animal  species,  those  geological 
periods  whose  immense  duration  defies  calculation. 
Still,  the  time  it  demands  is  considerable.''  The  varia- 
tions during  a  lapse  of  ten  centuries,  in  what  Le  Bon 
further  terms  ^  "the  congeries  of  sentiments,  ideas, 
tendencies,  and  beliefs,  which  form  the  soul  of  a  col- 
lectivity of  men,"  may  be  slight  and  of  narrow  range,  as 
a  whole,  but  at  times,  as  he  also  points  out,  they  may  be 
very  rapid  and  very  far-reaching.  We  have  all  experi- 
enced the  shock  which  this  fact  makes  apparent  in  the 

1  "Psychologie  des  Peuples/'pp.  11,  12.       '  Ihid.,  pp.  17,  IS. 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

pages  of  certain  books;  and  we  all  realize  the  difficulty 
of  studying  such  variations  from  trustworthy  sources. 
Evidently,  a  chief  source  of  study  must  be  the  indi- 
vidual; and,  if  so,  the  great  question  of  sincerity,  of  the 
reliability  of  personal  testimony,  is  here  to  be  faced  at 
the  outset.  Moreover,  the  statistician  distrusts  a  study 
of  the  individual.  Quetelet's  work,  On  Man,  written  in 
1835,  is  definite  on  this  head,  declaring  that  the  study 
of  the  individual  does  not  permit  a  proper  conception  of 
general  laws.  Individual  man,  he  thinks,  must  be  re- 
garded only  as  a  fraction  of  the  species,  and  any  per- 
sonal idiosyncrasies  must  be  eliminated  in  order  to 
arrive  at  general  results.  Francis  Galton,  working 
with  composite  photographs  and  statistics  of  family 
groups,  arrived  at  much  the  same  opinion;  yet  there 
is  a  suggestive  point  of  view  in  Cousin's  remark  ^  that 
he  regards  the  important  individual  as  the  essence 
of  his  epoch.  ''  Give  me  the  series  of  great  men," 
Cousin  says  practically,  "and  I  will  tell  you  the 
history  of  the  race;  because  history  is  best  repre- 
sented by  important  individuals."  Candolle,  in  his 
Histoire  des  Sciences  et  des  Savants  depuis  deux 
Siecles,^  alludes  directly  to  the  immense  value  of  and 
the  general  interest  in  the  autobiography.  The  delicate 
points  of  selection  and  reliability  will  always,  he  thinks, 
make  it  difficult  to  choose  testimony;  a  difficulty  which 
seems  insuperable  to  the  reader  plunging,  without  guide 
'  Quoted  by  Quetelet,  "Sur  rHomme, "  p.  281.      ^  Page  13. 


10  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

or  standard,  into  an  indiscriminate  mass  of  personal 
documents. 

We  now  see  clearly  the  attitude  of  the  statistician, 
and  can  readily  comprehend  that  he  offered  no  sugges- 
tions to  the  literary  critic,  writing  at  the  time  of  Sainte- 
Beuve,  to  regard  his  work  from  any  other  than  the 
literary  standpoint.  But  the  feeling  has  changed;  and 
we  find  M.  Ribot  insisting  on  the  value  of  memoires  as 
data,  and  even  comparing  them  to  the  laboratory 
experiment  which  inspires  such  unshakeable  faith. 

''  L' evolution  des  sentiments,"  he  asserts,  "  dans  le 
temps  et  Tespace,  a  travers  les  siecles  et  les  races,  est 
un  laboratoire  qui  op^re  depuis  les  millions  d'annees, 
sur  les  millions  d'hommes,  et  dont  la  valeur  documen- 
taire  n'est  pas  mediocre.  Ce  sera  pour  la  psychologic 
une  grande  perte  de  negliger  ces  documents."  ^ 

Not  only  does  M.  Ribot  make  these  general  state- 
ments, but  he  does  not  hesitate  to  use  concrete  examples. 
In  his  Essai  sur  V Imagination  Creatrice,  he  suggests 
the  value  of  collating  such  details  as  the  bizarreries  of  in- 
ventors, the  idiosyncrasies  of  poets  or  painters  during 
inspiration,  in  order  that  we  may  intimately  penetrate 
their  individualities.  And  he  intimates  that  a  systema- 
tic classification  of  such  data  is  necessary  before  we 
commit  ourselves  to  the  pathological  view  of  genius, 
as  some  of  his  fellow-scientists  have  done. 

He,  himself,  on  such  a  point  as  the  effect  on  the  im- 
»  "Psych,  des  Sentiments,"  pp.  195,  196. 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

agination  during  puberty,  instances  the  visionary  lady- 
love of  the  youthful  Chateaubriand  described  in  the 
Memoires  d'Outre-Tombe.  But  even  to  so  cultured 
a  scientist  as  M.  Ribot,  the  task  of  finding  valuable 
matter  in  this  heterogeneous  mass  would  be  tedious,  if 
not  impossible.  ''They  manage  these  things  better  in 
France,"  it  is  true;  but  even  in  France  there  appears 
to  be  no  systematic  and  satisfactory  bibliography  of 
memoires.  Under  our  present  cataloguing  system  in 
the  libraries,  no  means  exist  of  finding  what  important 
persons  have  written  of  themselves  and  what  their 
writings  are  worth,  save  by  an  actual  shelf-to-shelf  hunt. 
Is  your  psychologist  going  to  pause  in  his  work  on 
generalization  to  make  this  shelf-to-shelf  hunt?  Not 
while  he  has  possible  material  in  the  shape  of  modern 
personal  witnesses,  together  with  sheets  of  general  statis- 
tics. And,  yet,  if  we  believe,  with  M.  Cousin,  that  the 
great  man  represents  the  quintessence  of  his  epoch,  an 
autobiography  possesses  the  strong  advantage  of  supe- 
rior quality.  A  sincere,  full  autobiography  is  not  writ- 
ten save  by  an  important  man;  and,  in  truth,  one  of 
the  tokens  of  his  importance  is  the  seriousness  that  such 
a  work  appears  to  have  for  him.  The  quality  of  our 
witness,  therefore,  as  against  the  quantity  of  the 
statistician,  is  our  first  claim;  the  ore  from  this  mine 
must  assay  to  a  certain  degree  of  value.  For  the  his- 
torical element  of  the  historical  commentary,  or  me- 
moire,  this  has  been  successfully  undertaken.    Who 


12  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

writes  of  Louis  XIV  without  Saint-Simon,  of  mediaeval 
Rome  without  Ammianus  Marcellinus?  For  years  the 
objective  record  has  furnished  material  to  the  historian. 
There  He  in  the  subjective  record  equally  as  many  data 
for  the  psychologist.  If  it  is  true,  as  Quetelet  asserts, 
that  man  is  tending  toward  a  common  type;  that  the 
oscillation  of  his  elements  is  becoming  less  and  less  ex- 
treme, then  the  comparative  study  of  individuals  in  the 
past  furnishes  us  with  an  immense  illumination  on  the 
subject  of  character.  Into  this  unmapped  field  of  auto- 
biography we  are  about  to  enter.  If  we  would  not 
wander  aimlessly,  the  material  must  submit  itself  to  an 
attempt  at  classification. 


CHAPTER  II 

CLASSIFICATION  AND   THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 
INTENTION 

All  literary  records  are  of  unequal  value,  and  while 
they  are  being  sifted  they  must  also  be  judged.  Men- 
tion must  be  made  at  once  of  that  which  may  be 
unreservedly  eliminated.  If  we  repeat  and  emphasize 
the  ideal  of  friendship,  it  is  not  only  because  there  is  no 
friend  like  your  autobiographer,  but  also  because  only 
by  keeping  it  before  one's  mind  will  the  limitations 
of  this  study  be  wholly  understood.  The  scandalous 
memoir,  written  for  an  ulterior  purpose,  apart  from 
any  revelation  of  human  life,  has  but  a  negligible  value 
to  us  here.  So  also  is  it  with  the  teeming  thousands  of 
commonplace,  modern  imitations,  from  which  is  absent 
every  trace  of  serious  intent.  The  cases  remaining 
must  conform  to  a  certain  standard,  must  establish, 
as  it  were,  their  right  to  be  heard,  ere  their  testimony 
can  be  accepted.  For  the  whole  value  of  personal 
testimony  lies  in  the  quality  of  the  witness,  and  the 
special  danger  attending  the  study  of  self-revelation 
lies  in  treating  all  self-revealers  alike,  in  giving  an 
equal  weight  to  all.  In  the  treatment  of  the  religious 
confession  this  fact  has  been  more  often  forgotten,  just 
where  it  should  have  been  most  often  remembered. 


14  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

There  are  definite,  positive  reasons  why  the  religious 
confession  increases  in  value  by  a  regular  progression 
for  every  century  that  we  go  back  into  the  past.  The 
Quaker  journal  of  1650  is  worth  more  to  us  than  the 
Methodist  journal  of  1750;  the  mediaeval  chronicle  of 
1400-1500  still  more;  and  the  work  of  Augustin,  of 
IPaulinus,  most  of  all.  The  nearer  we  approach  to  the 
source  of  an  emotion,  the  more  fresh,  the  more  vital  is 
the  creative  impulse  it  inspired. 

When  that  which  was  a  fresh  and  vital  creative 
impulse  has  become  a  mere  fashion  in  writing,  one 
cannot  deny  that  its  value  as  evidence  is  lowered.  This 
is  reason  enough  why  it  were  a  waste  of  time  to  attempt 
a  study  of  all  the  ephemeral  issues  in  autobiographical 
form  during  the  last  hundred  years.  ^'The  Lights  and 
Shadows  of  my  Pastorate"  type  of  record,  so  common 
in  the  '50s,^has  been  merely  turned  over  and  allowed  to 
resume  its  slumber  undisturbed  upon  the  dusty  shelf 
of  the  library.  It  has  been  likewise  with  the  narratives 
of  travellers,  showmen,  conjurers,  —  P.  T.  Barnum, 
Signor  Blitz,  and  others,  —  whose  aim  is  merely  to  set 
forth  certain  actions  in  unfamiliar  fields,  and  who 
furnish  us  with  nothing  of  their  minds  and  characters. 
Some  modern  documents,  of  course,  such  as  Herbert 
Spencer  and  Mrs.  Oliphant,  tower  head  and  shoulders 
above  the  ruck  of  cheap  egotisms,  like  giant  trees 
above  a  secondary  growth;  and  these  have  been  fully 
considered.   Records  of  to-day  have  been  freely  used 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   INTENTION      15 

to  point  a  contrast,  to  illustrate  a  comparison;  but 
the  attempt  at  a  thorough  survey  of  subjective  study- 
does  not  go  beyond  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  reader  may  be  sure  that  the  omission 
of  a  work  simply  means  that  it  contains  no  definite 
matter  worth  noting  in  the  following  pages,  and  for 
this  same  reason  there  have  been  included  one  or  two 
works  apparently  otherwise  negligible. 

When  one  chooses  a  friend  between  the  deliberate 
covers  of  a  book,  he  is  chosen  for  some  salient  or  appeal- 
ing quality.  Propinquity,  the  worldly  jostle,  reasons  of 
poHcy,  have  no  effect  on  the  relation.  And  it  is  partly 
for  this  reason  —  although  only  partly  —  that  the  whole 
of  that  class  recognized  as  the  frankly-scandalous  it 
has  seemed  wiser  to  omit.  No  doubt  some  student,  of 
a  stronger  stomach  than  the  present  writer,  will  one 
day  examine  comparatively  such  famous  examples  as 
de  Choisy,  Lauzun,  Casanova,  and  their  no  less  famous 
imitators,  Faublas,  du  Bois,  du  Tilly,  down  through  the 
spurious  phases  of  this  mode,  to  the  so-called  Memoires 
of  Ninon  de  TEnclos,  Mesdames  du  Barri  and  Lamotte- 
Valois,  and  give  us  his  conclusions  on  the  curious 
psychology  of  erotics.  It  is  a  book  for  the  clinic,  which 
will  some  day  be  written.  Meanwhile,  guided  by  our 
hopes  of  friendship,  our  rules  are  those  which  govern 
any  broad  and  intelligent  society.  In  the  event  of  a 
personal  introduction  to  M.  de  Lauzun,  or  M.  le  Comte 
Jacques  de  Casanova  de  Seingalt,  should  we  be  likely 


16  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to  broach,  during  our  chat,  the  subject  of  their  bonnes 
fortunes  ?  Topics  there  are  more  interesting,  and,  more- 
over, it  would  imply  a  certain  degree  of  intimacy. 
And  do  we  really  wish  to  be  intimate  with  M.  de  Lauzun, 
or  M.  de  Casanova?  Most  of  us,  it  may  be  said  without 
contradiction,  would  choose  our  friends  elsewhere.  Un- 
fortunately, these  ladies  and  gentlemen  have  so  little 
to  give  us. 

This  is  to  be  noted  especially  when  one  comes  to  the 
greater  self-students,  who,  vices  and  all,  are  so  emi- 
nently worthy  of  friendship.  For  this  omission  is  not 
a  question  of  the  proprieties,  but  rather  of  what  is 
worth  while.  There  may  be  an  evil  side  to  many  great 
lives;  the  vices  and  appetites  of  a  vital  nature  must  not 
be  left  out  in  any  estimate  of  that  nature's  development. 
The  less  worthy  part  of  our  friend  may  occupy  our 
attention  so  long  as  it  is  but  a  part.  If,  in  unveiling  the 
darker  corners  of  his  life,  he  is  moved  by  sincerity,  by 
the  deep-rooted  desire  to  appear  as  he  really  is,  an 
entire  creature;  then  it  is  as  an  entire  creature  we  must 
study  him,  omitting  nothing.  But  the  moment  his 
vice  becomes  his  major  topic,  dwelt  on  with  enjoyment, 
and  written  to  give  enjoyment  to  creatures  like  him- 
self, then  he  forthwith  passes  out  of  our  hands  into 
those  of  the  pathologist.  We  do  not  go  to  the  sani- 
tarium in  quest  of  friendship,  although  we  may 
loyally  accompany  our  friend  thither,  once  we  have 
come  to  know  and  love  him  when  he  was  well.    A  man's 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   INTENTION      17 

attitude  toward  his  own  evil,  so  vital,  so  explanatory, 
is  a  potent  factor  in  determining  his  standing  for  all 
time.  Rousseau  draws  perilously  near  condemnation 
by  it;  if  he  escapes,  it  is  because  of  the  sheer  lifting- 
power  of  his  peculiar  genius.  One  cannot  help  won- 
dering if  the  autobiography  of  Byron,  which  Moore 
destroyed,  might  not  have  cast  a  final  light,  by  its 
attitude  in  this  regard,  on  that  protean  character. 

Before  we  begin  our  attempt  at  a  necessary  classifi- 
cation, it  will  be  well  to  glance  for  a  moment  at  certain 
varieties  of  autobiographical  writing  which  have  a 
particular  tendency,  or  a  special  significance.  The  field 
is  so  wide,  its  characteristics  so  diverse,  that  a  simple 
and  elastic  grouping  of  what  is  surveyed  becomes 
necessary  in  order  that  the  methods  of  the  student 
shall  be  understood.  For  instance,  autobiography  in 
the  form  of  fiction,  while  not  deserving  of  an  especial 
study,  cannot  be  wholly  ignored.  Cases  of  this  class 
readily  occur  to  the  mind.  Alfred  de  Musset's  Con- 
fessions dfun  Enfant  du  Siecle  is  a  well-known  exam- 
ple; also  the  curious  Memoires  de  Madame  d' Epinay 
(which  we  shall  later  find  valuable  on  another  count) ; 
and  the  celebrated  Memoires  du  Seigneur  de  Fleu- 
range,  called  Le  Jeune  Aventureux,  which  are  his 
own  work,  although  he  makes  use  of  the  third  per- 
son. The  historical  commentary  of  Jacques  Auguste 
de  Thou  represents  another  variation;  in  it  he  uses  the 
first  person,  whereas  in  his  Vita  Sua  he  uses  the  third. 


18  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Both  of  these  works  are  written  with  an  historical  object. 
De  Thou  seems  to  be  editing  his  own  work  by  trans- 
position to  the  third  person;  and  his  example  has  been 
followed,  much  to  our  regret,  by  other  laborious  editors, 
who  seem  to  fancy  that  they  have  dignified  a  personal 
memoir  by  this  transformation.  The  learned  Dr.  Ed- 
mund Calamy  has  done  this  for  Richard  Baxter's  Life 
of  Himself.  It  is  an  infallible  way  to  lend  an  air  of 
utter  untrustworthiness  to  the  case;  but  it  is  not  the 
only  wrong  the  self-student  has  had  to  suffer  at  the 
hands  of  the  editor.  Because  a  man  writes  of  himself 
it  appears  to  be  taken  for  granted  he  knows  nothing 
of  the  subject;  his  work  is  ruthlessly  condensed,  trans- 
posed, and  cut,  without  acknowledgment,  and  thus 
often  presents  a  wholly  one-sided  view.  Mr.  W.  D. 
Howells  sins  almost  beyond  pardon  in  this  respect  in 
his  series  of  Great  Autobiographies,  which  should  be 
valuable.  The  omissions  in  the  case  of  Herbert  of 
Cherbury,  to  take  a  single  instance,  would  lead  one 
to  overlook  all  that  curious  and  significant  candor  with 
which  Herbert  explains  his  attitude  toward  marital 
faithfulness,  an  attitude  so  illuminative  of  his  type  of 
mind.  But  even  Mr.  Howells,  hard  as  it  is  to  forgive  the 
loss  of  time  and  trust  betrayed,  —  even  Mr,  Howells  is 
not  so  trying  as  those  children  and  grandchildren  who 
gayly  edit  the  autobiographies  of  their  parents.  The 
honest  toiler's  heart  sinks  within  him  at  the  mere  sight 
of  those  words  on  the  title-page,  "  edited  by  his  son." 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   INTENTION      19 

He  knows  that  he  will  come  upon  the  statement  that 
only  ''matters  of  interest  to  the  public"  have  been 
retained;  that  all  family  and  private  matters  have  been 
omitted.  He  is  lucky  if  the  omission  goes  no  further. 
The  editor  is  apt  to  fear  to  wound  the  feelings  of  some 
extant  third  cousin,  and  so  has  cut  out  the  personal 
description;  or  has  found  his  progenitor  tedious  in  de- 
tails as  to  his  constitution,  methods  of  work,  personal 
habits,  dreams,  and  what  not,  and  so  has  firmly  excised 
them.  Bare,  garbled,  bereft,  the  document  lies  before 
us,  shorn  of  the  rich  minutiae  which  might  have 
given  material  to  the  psychologist,  suggestions  to  the 
sociologist,  or  aid  to  the  imagination  in  forming  a  pic- 
ture of  the  past.  Surely  it  is  not  for  one  close  to  the 
biographer  to  determine  his  value,  and  a  reader  will 
always  prefer  to  do  his  own  skipping.  We  can  only  be 
thankful  that  Jerome  Cardan's  children  were  too  igno- 
rant to  lay  hands  on  the  De  Vita  Propria  Liber. 

The  memoir  as  fiction  and  the  memoir  transposed  by 
another  hand,  walk  the  paths  of  autobiography,  loiter- 
ing, to  use  a  police  phrase,  in  a  suspicious  manner.  En- 
wrapped as  they  are  in  veils  and  disguises,  one  has 
to  be  particularly  careful  as  to  identification  before 
using  their  material.  For  this  reason  they  are  more 
subtly  dangerous  than  the  frankly  spurious  class.  The 
spurious  autobiography  is  the  refuge  of  both  the  scio- 
list and  the  literary  charlatan.  Once  thrown  upon  life, 
difficult  to  avow,  impossible  to  recall,  it  lurks  about 


20  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the  decent  society  of  books  like  some  base-born  adven- 
turer, communicating  evil  and  distrust.  In  the  past 
its  examples  followed  n  the  footsteps  of  the  scandalous 
and  salable  volume.  The  literature  of  roguery  is  full 
of  the  spurious  confession.  Henry  Vaux,  thief  and 
forger,  Captain  Thomas  Ashe,  who  dedicated  his  per- 
formance to  Lord  Byron,  both  bear  internal  evidence 
of  deliberate  manufacture.  Any  one  chancing  upon 
those  memoires  bearing  the  names  of  le  comte  de 
Rochefort,  J.  B.  la  Fontaine,  le  marquis  de  Montbrun, 
la  marquise  de  Fresne,  le  comte  de  Vordan,  la  Feuillade, 
or  le  chevalier  de  Rohan,  knows  that  he  has  before  him 
one  of  the  innumerable  forgeries  of  the  ingenious 
Courtilz  de  Sandraz  et  de  Verge,  to  whom  also  we  owe 
the  immortal  d'Artagnan.  Somewhat  higher  in  the  scale 
of  fraudulency  is  the  careful  volume  forged  out  of  a  mo- 
saic of  letters  and  anecdotes  in  the  manner  of  a  period, 
like  a  piece  of  furniture  or  a  tiara  of  Saitaphernes. 
It  is  often  so  vivaciously  done  that  it  appears  to  be 
real;  and  indeed  serves  the  same  purpose,  by  imparting 
an  air  of  culture  to  the  boudoirs  of  the  wealthy. 

Not  the  commercially  but  the  seriously  spurious 
memoir,  it  is  so  hard  to  forgive.  When  the  original  cir- 
cumstance of  its  writing  is  forgotten,  it  becomes  listed 
under  biography  in  the  libraries.  In  another  generation 
some  one  stumbles  unaware  upon  the  autobiography  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  let  us  say,  gets  it  down  in  a  fine 
glow  of  surprised  reverence,  wastes  an  hour  reading  it, 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   INTENTION      21 

only  to  be  finally  exasperated  by  the  printed  lie.  One 
might  suppose  that  a  sense  of  humor,  if  not  of  reverence, 
would  prevent  a  writer's  giving  occasion  for  so  much 
malediction.  That  ingenious  lunatic  who,  in  1857,  pub- 
lished the  Autobiography  of  Jesus  Christ  deserves,  on 
the  other  hand,  rather  to  be  classed  with  those  mediaeval 
heralds  who  designed  coat-armor  and  escutcheons  for 
Adam  and  Eve. 

When  we  come  to  consider  autobiography  from  the 
beginning,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  term  memoire 
is  exceedingly  loose,  and  in  no  sense  a  definition.  Only 
in  recent  times  has  it  come  to  have  a  personal,  much  less 
a  biographical  significance.  Beaumarchais'  Memoires 
are  a  series  of  legal  tracts  or  briefs.  Used  in  its  major 
sense  of  record,  we  find  "  memoirs"  on  sugar  and  corn, 
on  decrees  and  historical  events.  In  a  personal  sense  a 
memoire  may  be  the  life  of  a  man  by  himself,  or  by 
some  one  else,  or  written  in  the  first  person  wholly 
around  a  second  person,  and  secondarily,  if  at  all,  auto- 
biographical. Such  is  Sully's  Les  Economies  royales  et 
les  Servitudes  loyales,  which  is  a  memoire,  written  in  the 
first  person  by  Sully's  secretaries  from  his  dictation, 
dedicated  to  Henri  IV,  concerning  Henri  IV,  and  with 
the  object  of  rousing  that  monarch's  tardy  gratitude  by 
a  statement  of  what  had  been  accomplished.  The  man- 
ner is  autobiographical,  but  neither  the  matter  nor  the 
purpose.  Many  court  memoires  are  written  about  the 
monarch  or  some  court-figure,  and  contain  nothing  auto- 


22  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

biographical  whatever  except  the  first  person.  Several 
of  these  are  in  the  Louis  XIV  group,  —  Madame  de 
Motteville's  for  instance;  and  they  constitute  the 
Napoleonic,  for  such  as  those  of  Dumouriez,  Grouchy, 
Ney,  Lavalette,  Fouche,  Marmont,  Talleyrand,  Rovigo, 
Rapp,  Rimini,  Bourrienne,  Marbot,  are  avowedly  written 
for  or  against  or  about  that  great  central  figure. 

The  function  of  these  narratives,  which  we  may 
broadly  class  as  the  objective,  belongs  primarily  to  his- 
tory. It  is  the  sense  of  aiding  history  which  moves  the 
pens  of  Madame  de  Motteville,  Saint-Simon,  Sully, 
d'Argenson.  After  a  page  or  two  of  self-introduction, 
we  find  the  writer's  personality  submerged  in  the  event, 
and  rising  to  the  surface  only  when  the  event  carries  him 
there.  The  reason  for  writing  furnished  by  these  me- 
moiristes  is  clearly  the  historical  influence.  Saint-Simon 
states: — 

"What  I  read  of  my  own  accord  of  history  and  above 
all  of  the  personal  memoirs  of  the  time  since  Frangois  I, 
has  bred  in  me  the  desire  to  write  down  what  I  might 
myself  see." 

The  same  avowedly  historical  purpose  moves  such 
salient  figures  as  Cheverny,  Comines,  Villehardouin, 
Joinville,  Pierre  de  TEstoile,  Richelieu,  in  France; 
Bishop  Burnet,  in  England;  Catherine  II  of  Russia;  and 
the  Hindu  emperors,  Timur,  Baber  and  Jahangir.  His- 
tory has  long  since  made  use  of  this  material,  w^hich  has 
furnished  the  indispensable  and  picturesque  requisite 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   INTENTION      23 

of  an  individual  point  of  view.  There  is  little  for  us  to 
do  in  this  work  with  what  may  be  classed  as  objective 
memoirs. 

But  when  we  come  to  consider  the  equally  large  mass 
of  documents  to  be  classed  broadly  as  subjective,  we  find 
ourselves  upon  uncharted  seas.   The  rise  and  tendency 
of  self-study  remains  to  be  analyzed,  and  ideas  on  the 
subject,  for  want  of  any  comparative  data,  have  been 
entirely  vague. ^   The  only  type  of  subjective  autobio- 
graphy which  has  received  any  attention  whatever  at 
the  hand  of  the  scientist,  is  the  religious  confession,  and 
that  largely  by  way  of  illustration.    As  a  special  and 
important  section  of  the  subjective  record,  it  will  here 
receive  separate  classification  and  consideration.    Of 
course,  the  subjective  matter  contained  in  objective 
documents  has  been  used.   Human  personality  is  hard 
to  down,  and  all  memoir  writers  are  not  so  consistent  as 
Saint-Simon  or  d'Argenson.  Sometimes  a  vigorous  mind 
will  turn  itself  inward  for  study,  even  without  the  wish 
to  do  so;  and  it  is  equally  true  that  a  very  subjective 
intention  may  bring  us  only  a  barren  record  of  politi- 
cal facts. 

Nicholas  de  Neufville,  Seigneur  de  Villeroy,  in  his 
Memoires  dfEstat,  sets  out  with  the  observation:  ^'Le 
plus  grand  contentement  que  puisse  avoir  un  homme 
de  bien,  apres  celuy  que  luy  rend  sa  conscience  .  .  . 

^  Since  these  words  were  written  the  voluminous  work  of 
Professor  Georg  Misch,  "  Geschichte  der  Autobiographien,"  has 
been  issued  in  its  first  volume. 


24  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

est  d'etre  tenu  pour  tel  qu'il  est  .  .  .  "a  statement 
which  appears  to  promise  a  study  as  subjective  as 
Cardan's  or  Alfieri's.  Instead  of  which  we  find  a  histori- 
cal tract  wherein  he  never  mentions  himself,  and  does , 
not  let  us  know  what  actions  were  his  own,  nor  even 
which  concerned  him.  On  the  other  hand,  Blaise  de 
Monluc,  in  Les  Commentaires  declares  that  "  he  plus 
grand  capitaine  qui  ayt  jamais  este,  qui  est  Cesar,  m'en 
monstre  le  chemin,"  and  gives  one  of  the  most  minute 
and  thorough  pieces  of  self-study  in  existence,  the  most 
un-Csesarian  personal  picture  that  ever  professed  the 
Roman  for  a  model.  To  go  to  the  document  itself, 
therefore,  in  the  face  of  these  inconsistencies,  is  our  only 
course;  to  gather  and  to  collate  such  subjective  data  as 
the  autobiographical  impulse  has  caused  the  historian 
to  insert,  albeit  unconsciously,  in  his  narrative,  since  the 
gift  of  self-revelation  may  develop  under  the  most  un- 
likely forms.  Classification  cannot  be  made  strictly 
according  to  the  reason  for  writing,  —  although  it  may 
generally  be  so  made,  — but  must  remain  elastic,  to  per- 
mit of  a  flexible  passing  from  one  division  of  the  subject 
to  another.  Our  concern  lies  with  that  mass  of  heteroge- 
neous subjective  data  up  to  the  present  ungathered,  un- 
classified, and  unregarded.  Here  we  are  interested  in 
what  people  have  been,  in  what  they  have  thought 
themselves  and  why,  and  in  the  methods  by  which  they 
display  the  materials  of  their  self-introspection. 
What  causes  a  man  to  write  a  study  of  himself  which 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   INTENTION      25 

shall  truly  reveal  him?  When  we  ask  this  question  we 
strike  at  once  into  obscure  deeps.  Rousseau  imagined : 
*'Je  forme  une  entreprise  qui  n'eut  jamais  d'exemple 
et  dont  Texecution  n'aura  point  d'imitateur."  Both 
statements  we  now  know  to  be  rhetorical  rather  than 
true,  for  Rousseau  had  notable  examples  and  has  had 
notable  imitators.  Two  hundred  years  earlier  Cardan 
began  his  book  with  the  following  sentence:  *' Since 
among  all  the  things  which  mankind  has  been  given  to 
follow  there  is  nothing  more  worthy  or  pleasing  than  a 
knowledge  of  the  truth  ...  we  have  been  led  to  write 
this  book  of  our  own  life." 

Benvenuto  Cellini,  a  notable  example  of  the  same 
date,  expresses  his  conviction  that  "  all  men  of  whatso- 
ever quality  they  be,  who  have  done  anything  of  excel- 
lence, ought,  if  they  are  persons  of  truth  and  honesty, 
to  describe  their  life  with  their  own  hands." 

Here  are  two  reasons  as  cogent  and  as  valid  as  Rous- 
seau's: "Si  je  nevaux  pas  mieux, au moins  je  suis  autre," 
which  has  usurped  attention  on  this  subject;  and  they 
must  be  emphasized,  because  Rousseau  has  stood  so 
long  as  the  one  type  of  the  subjective  autobiographer 
that  he  positively  hinders  us  from  taking  a  broad  view. 
His  Confessions  were  written  during  a  period  of  great 
individualism  and  self-affirmation,  and  they  gave  a 
crystallizing  touch  to  the  many  tentative  ideas  of  an  age 
of  theory.  They  were,  moreover,  permeated  with  emo- 
tion, an  emotion  expressed  with  the  voice  and  accent  of 


26  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

genius;  and  the  impression  which  they  made  was  —  if 
one  may  put  it  so  —  almost  a  religious  impression.  So 
entirely  did  they  fill  the  skies  at  the  time,  that  men 
forgot  their  idea  was  by  no  means  original,  —  a  revived 
literary  mood  rather  than  a  fresh  literary  impulse. 

The  whole  subjective  idea  has  thus,  because  of  Rous- 
seau, been  connected  in  our  minds  with  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  has  received  consideration  as  an  expression 
of  eighteenth-century  moods  and  tendencies.  To  carry 
the  reader  back  of  Rousseau  to  the  earlier  mani- 
festations of  this  impulse  must  be  the  first  step;  for  a 
right  understanding  of  the  Confessions  demands  that 
they  should  be  placed  in  their  proper  relative  position 
toward  other  great  self-studies. 

There  have  been  quoted  above  certain  reasons  for 
writing  given  by  three  marked  and  definite  characters. 
A  fuller  comparative  inquiry  into  such  reasons  will  be 
found,  together  with  other  considerations  on  sincerity, 
in  the  chapter  devoted  to  that  purpose.  But  they  can- 
not wholly  escape  mention  here  if  the  reason  for  writing 
one's  own  life  springs  from  any  recognizable  psychologi- 
cal condition.  The  whole  subject  of  self-observation 
is  exceedingly  obscure,  and  has  been  studied  only  in  its 
abnormal  manifestations.  It  has  been  difficult  to  find 
more  than  the  most  casual  references  to  this  intellec- 
tual condition.  In  a  recent  German  treatise  ^  there  is 
the  following  suggestive  paragraph: 

1  Otto  Weiniger,  "Sex  and  Character,"  p.  125. 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   INTENTION      27 

*'  It  will  now  be  seen  why  (if  neither  vanity,  desire  for 
gossip  nor  imitation  drives  them  to  it)  only  the  better 
men  write  down  recollections  of  their  lives;  and  how  I 
perceive  in  this  a  strong  evidence  of  the  connection  be- 
tween memory  and  giftedness.  It  is  not  as  if  every  man 
of  genius  wished  to  write  an  autobiography :  the  incite- 
ment to  autobiography  comes  from  special,  very  deep- 
seated  psychological  conditions." 

Study  of  the  reasons  for  writing  autobiography  would 
seem  to  throw  some  light  upon  these  conditions.  They 
form  a  part  of  Fichte's  recommendation  to  the  stuteit 
in  his  introduction  to  The  Science  of  Knowledge :  ^ 
''Attend  to  thyself;  turn  thy  glances  away  from  all  that 
surrounds  thee  and  upon  thine  own  innermost  self. 
Such  is  the  first  demand  which  philosophy  makes  of  its 
disciples.  We  speak  of  nothing  that  is  without  thee,  but 
whoUy  of  thyself." 

Since  this  is  philosophy's  first  demand  of  its  disciples, 
we  comprehend  more  clearly  why  an  autobiography  is  so 
apt  both  to  precede  the  mental  changes  in  an  intellect  of 
the  first  order,  and  to  follow  them.  The  whole  philosophi- 
cal trend  in  such  a  mind  moves  in  the  direction  of  better 
self -understanding;  the  '^  attend  to  thyself"  becomes  an 
imperious  command,  acting  upon  a  new  and  sensitive 
humility.  A  man  says  to  himself  something  like  this: 
*'  Behold,  I  understand  nothing,  not  even  myself.  With 
what  shall  I  begin,  now  that  my  desire  for  study  is 

*  Benjamin  Rand,  "  Modem  Classical  Philosophers." 


28  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

aroused?  With  myself.''  And  thus  the  conditions  gov- 
erning the  incitement  to  autobiography  are  formed; 
serious  conditions,  as  Fichte  perceived,  and  indicative 
of  the  position  of  that  man's  mind  toward  philosophy  at 
that  time. 

To  the  student,  moreover,  by  acknowledging  and 
defining  a  special,  deep-seated  psychological  condi- 
tion, further  classification  of  this  heterogeneous  mass 
of  records  is  made  possible.  One  is  thus  enabled 
to  separate  the  document  written  with  a  '' desire  for 
gossip  or  imitation"  from  that  which  is  the  outcome 
of  a  governed  impulse  which  we  have  ventured  to 
call  the  autobiographical  intention.  The  weight  and 
value  of  a  case  will  be  found  in  direct  proportion  to  the 
exactness  and  the  seriousness  of  its  autobiographical 
intention.  Vanity  as  an  element  in  nullifying  the  value 
of  a  case  is  by  no  means  established.  Crude  cases  of 
vanity,  such  as  Charlotte  Charke,  the  Margravine  of 
Anspach,  the  Abbe  de  Choisy,  will  remain,  of  course,  un- 
important; but  to  dissever  the  deep-seated,  obscure 
vanity  of  the  genuine  self-student  from  his  austere  au- 
tobiographical intention,  is  well-nigh  impossible.  The 
whole  question  of  subjectivity,  with  its  mingled  threads 
of  egotism,  vanity,  and  humility,  remains  a  tangled 
skein  for  us.  Even  in  its  effect  on  the  sincerity  of  a  case, 
vanity  cannot  be  accurately  determined,  for  there  are 
exceedingly  vain  autobiographers  like  James  Hogg,  the 
Ettrick  Shepherd,  who  have  been  minutely,  exquisitely 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL   INTENTION      29 

sincere.  The  effect  of  vanity  may  lie  in  its  proportion 
to  the  intellectual  force  of  the  self -student,  just  as  cer- 
tain chemical  combinations  must  remain  in  solution  or 
the  combination  cannot  be  maintained. 

At  the  moment  it  were  well  to  understand  the  limits 
of  the  autobiographical  intention,  since  conformation 
to  them  is  to  be  so  largely  our  standard  of  value.  The 
best  definition  obtainable  is  to  be  found  in  a  case  other- 
wise unimportant,  the  Journal  d^une  Jeune  Artiste  of 
Marie  Bashkirtsev.  As  a  book,  its  startling  egotisms 
gave  it  a  fleeting  vogue,  but  its  absence  of  simplicity, 
sensational  style,  and  lack  of  mental  and  nervous  bal- 
ance render  it  as  evidence  completely  nugatory;  since, 
contrary  to  general  opinion,  it  is  not  necessarily  the 
emotional  and  neurotic  person  who  becomes  the  note- 
worthy self-student.  The  curious  thing  about  Marie 
Bashkirtsev  is  her  extraordinary  perception  of  the  value 
of  self-study,  which  gives  a  dignity  to  the  sentences  of 
her  preface :  ' '  If  I  should  not  live  long  enough  to  become 
famous,"  she  writes,  "  this  journal  will  be  interesting  to 
psychologists.  The  record  of  a  woman's  life,  written 
down  day  by  day,  without  any  attempt  at  concealment, 
as  if  no  one  in  the  world  were  to  read  it,  yet  with  the 
purpose  of  being  read,  is  always  interesting.  If  this  book 
is  not  the  exact,  the  absolute,  the  strict  truth,  it  has  no 
raison  d'etre." 

Like  the  living  human  being,  the  autobiographer 
must  come  to  stand  for  what  he  is.   So  this  young 


30  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

woman's  exact,  absolute,  strict  truth  simply  shows  her 
to  us  for  what  she  was,  an  unbalanced  neurasthenic. 
Yet  in  the  italicized  phrases  she  has  furnished  a  defi- 
nition of  the  autobiographical  intention  which  it  is 
impossible  to  better.  It  must  be  remembered  in  making 
an  estimate  of  every  document  of  this  kind.  Its  two 
parts  become  the  first  and  second  canon  for  the  classic 
autobiographer.  Written  *'as  if  no  one  in  the  world 
were  to  read  it/'i.  e.,  with  the  utmost  candor,  is  the  first 
requisite;  but  it  would  apply  to  the  diary  as  well,  if  it 
were  not  for  the  second  canon,  ''yet with  the  purpose 
of  being  read."  It  is  this  purpose  which  adds  to  the 
impulse  dignity  and  measure,  and  which,  as  we  shall 
see,  tends  to  establish  and  confirm  its  sincerity.  This 
"purpose  of  being  read''  raises  a  merely  evanescent 
mood  of  introspection  to  a  point  where  it  may  generate 
power.  The  great  pieces  of  self-study  not  only  wholly 
fulfill  these  canons,  but  they  are  raised  above  the 
mediocre  efforts  of  the  same  kind  because  they  do  so. 
We  find  Augustin,  Cardan,  Rousseau,  Mill,  Franklin, 
writing  "as  if  no  one  in  the  world  were  to  read  it,  yet 
with  the  purpose  of  being  read." 

Now  that  we  are  provided  with  a  standard  for  our 
material,  we  are  the  better  able  to  approach  the  material 
itself,  asking  not  only  what  caused  a  man  to  write  of 
himself,  but  when  and  under  what  influences  did  he 
begin  to  do  so. 


CHAPTER  III 

fflSTORY 

Since  any  historical  survey,  however  brief,  should 
have  a  starting-point,  ours  may  be  said,  without  fear 
of  contradiction,  to  be  the  Christian  era.  No  history 
of  the  subjective  trend  in  literature  appears  to  have 
been  written;^  its  origins  are  complex  and  obscure  and 
are  ignored  by  students  of  the  period  during  which  it 
began.  Throughout  Gibbon's  analysis  of  the  influence 
which  Christianity  exercised  upon  Roman  life,  there 
is  no  mention  of  this  element  which  it  introduced  into 
thought.  Yet,  lest  the  mind  should  take  it  for  granted 
that  in  this  case,  as  in  many  others,  an  apparently  new 
literary  movement  is,  in  reality,  an  old  forgotten  one,  we 
cannot  emphasize  too  strongly  that  autobiography  as 
we  know  it,  and  in  its  full  sense,  does  not  exist  before 
Christ.  If  there  is  one  fact  which  history  succeeds 
in  making  completely  convincing,  one  broad  difference 
which  it  underlines  as  dividing  our  intellectual  life  from 
the  intellectual  life  of  elder  civilizations,  it  is  their  com- 
parative objectivity.  This  difference  separates  the  an- 
cient world  from  the  modern  as  tangibly  as  a  wall  or  a 
ditch.   It  has  been  stated  and  approached  in  a  hundred 

^  The  appearance  of  Professor  Georg  Misch's  first  volume 
would  seem  to  require  some  modification  of  this  statement. 


32  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ways :  from  the  philosophical,  literary  and  artistic  points 
of  view.  It  has  been  mentioned  as  evidence  of  youth; 
as  evidence  of  a  barbaric  and  warlike  period;  as  evi- 
dence of  the  influence  of  the  agricultural  stage  of  man's 
development.  We  find  the  objectivity  of  early  art, 
literature,  and  thought  insisted  on  by  every  historian 
of  these  subjects.  In  religion  the  keynote  of  the  ritual 
is  command  and  exhortation  as  to  act  and  deed.  The 
Old  Testament  and  the  New,  laid  side  by  side,  afford 
the  most  striking  proof  of  this  change  of  ideal.  Poetry, 
also.  Dr.  Gummere  says,  "  Poetry  begins  with  the  im- 
personal, with  communal  emotion."  ^ 

Individualism,  of  course,  is  a  later  development  in 
literature.  The  early  Biblical  writings  were  communal; 
any  one  was  at  liberty  to  add  to  an  existing  narrative, 
to  interpolate  his  own  ideas  and  variations,  as  is  seen 
in  the  books  of  Genesis  and  Job.  Individualism  must 
invariably  precede  any  subjective  trend;  and  thus  it  is 
comparatively  late  that  we  find  pieces  of  literary  work 
signed  and  accredited  to  some  given  author. 

In  the  earlier  narratives  of  history  —  and  it  is  history 
which  comes  nearest  to  the  personal  memoir  —  it  is  a 
matter  of  literary  etiquette  to  keep  the  objective  point 
of  view  completely  in  mind.  It  did  not  seem  to  Hero- 
dotus or  Xenophon  that  their  personal  attitude  held 
any  interest  for  the  reader.  The  whole  literary  tradition 
and  equipment  of  the  Greek  turned  him  away  from 
^  "  The  B^innings  of  Poetry." 


HISTORY  33 

introspection;  his  preference  for  the  imaginative  in 
literature  kept  his  eye  upon  the  outside  world.  This 
does  not  mean  that  in  occasional  scattered  pieces 
of  writing  one  may  not  find  an  unconscious  subjec- 
tive spirit.  It  is  strong  in  certain  pages  of  Plato, 
whose  ''Know  thyself,"  indeed,  would  seem  to  refute 
us,  were  it  not  preceded  by  the  command,  "  Do  thine 
own  work."  The  great  religious  reformers  before  Christ 
contain  detached  passages  and  religious  moods  of  great 
subjectivity,  as  all  religious  leaders  must.  But  never, 
in  any  consecutive  manner,  does  Plato,  or  Confucius, 
or  Buddha,  or  any  other  leader  or  reformer  before 
Jesus  Christ  suggest  that  what  a  man  is,  is  more  im- 
portant than  what  he  does;  or  that  duty  obliges  him 
to  study  himself  with  care  and  candor,  that  by  such 
study  he  may  assist  other  blind  creatures  like  himself. 

''0  miseras  hominum  mentes!  0  pectora  caeca!" 
cries  Lucretius;  and  the  lament  has  a  poignancy  the 
more  readily  understood. 

The  past,  however,  contains  the  seed  of  the  present, 
as  well  as  those  favorable  influences  which  cause  it  to 
spring  into  leaf.  Where,  then,  is  to  be  found  the  germ 
of  autobiographical  writing?  Egyptian  literature  con- 
tains records  of  the  individual;  even  as  early  as  the 
Sixth  Dynasty  are  those  of  Una  and  Abeba.  A  papyrus 
of  the  Twelfth  Dynasty  contains  a  partially  autobio- 
graphic, romantic  narrative  by  a  soldier  named  Suneha, 
and  similar  statements  with  the  names  of  Ameni  and 


S4  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Kuhmhetp.  And  in  the  Eighteenth  Dynasty,  be- 
sides the  general  Aahmes,  more  definite  types  of  such 
records  are  credited  to  Thothmes  III  and  to  the  great 
Rameses  II. 

It  is  rare  when  a  literary  movement  of  significance 
starts  from  the  throne;  for  Nature  loves  to  mock  the 
grandeur  of  kings  by  seeing  to  it  that  enduring  and  in- 
fluential waves  shall  start  from  the  people.  But  here, 
in  the  subjective  tendency,  we  have  a  distinct  develop- 
ment of  self-assertion;  and  for  literary  manifestations 
of  the  instinct  of  self-assertion,  the  people,  in  the  early 
civilizations,  were  ill-placed.  So  it  is  that  in  the  inscrip- 
tions of  bygone  rulers  and  conquerors  the  ^*I"  first 
stands  definitely  forth. 

'^I  became  king;  I  enslaved  such  a  people;  my  wis- 
dom and  beneficence  accomplished  this  and  that."  The 
evolution  of  this  inscription  explains  itself.  On  the  clay 
cylinders  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  found  by  Sir  Henry  Raw- 
linson  at  Birs-Nimrud,  are  recorded  sentences  of  simple 
self-glorification,  as  follows:  — 

"Nebuchadnezzar,  King  of  Babylon,  the  rightful 
ruler,  the  expression  of  the  righteous  heart  of  Marduk, 
the  exalted  high  priest,  the  beloved  of  Nebo,  the  wise 
prince  —  am  I." 

Compare  this  opening,  and  the  bald  phrases  of  de- 
scription which  follow  it,  with  the  opening  paragraphs 
of  the  Monumentum  Ancyranum  translated  by  Momm- 
sen.    The    deeds   of    Augustus,    recited   in   the    first 


HISTORY  35 

person,  are  given  a  manner  of  detail  and  weight  not  at 
all  unlike  the  historical  memoirs  of  De  Thou.  Before 
this,  Cffisar's  Commentaries  show  us  the  inscription 
placed  by  a  wise  man  upon  a  more  enduring  medium 
than  stone;  and  we  are  told  of  certain  similar  docu- 
ments left  by  consuls,  such  as  the  lost  commentaries  of 
Sulla  (under  whose  influence  Caesar  must  have  written), 
which  show  the  change  in  operation.  The  inscrip- 
tion has  become  a  document.  The  stonecutter's  tran- 
scription from  the  hand  of  some  flattering  high  priest 
has  gone  back  to  the  chief  person  concerned.  The  king, 
the  consul,  or  the  emperor  has  felt  the  wish  to  justify 
himself,  to  take  himself  with  seriousness;  he  no  longer 
permits  some  priest  or  secretary  to  put  words  into  his 
mouth,  he  writes  them  himself.  Rameses  is  satisfied  if 
his  statue  bear  the  royal  insignia,  though  it  be  hard  to 
tell  from  that  of  his  father,  Seti;  but  this  does  not  con- 
tent Caesar  or  Augustus.  The  ruler  no  longer  desires  to 
be  conventionalized,  but  to  be  individual.  Thus  the 
idea  of  leaving  individual  records  is  pleasing  to  the 
sovereign.  The  example  of  Caesar  and  Augustus  is  fol- 
lowed by  most  of  their  successors;  and  we  find  Tiberius, 
Claudius,  Vespasian,  Trajan,  Hadrian,  Severus,  and 
Aurelian  leaving  similar  commentaries  of  a  wholly 
historical  nature. 

All  this  is  purely  objective, —  the  evolution  of  the  his- 
torical and  political  record.  From  the  vainglorious  in- 
scription on  tile  or  monolith,  it  has  moved  down  for  two 


S6  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

thousand  years,  till  it  reaches  the  Roman  Empire  in  the 
expanded  form  of  commentary.  Up  to  Augustus  the 
evolutionary  process  had  been  slow,  and  only  directly 
influenced,  it  would  seem,  by  an  increased  facility  in 
methods  of  writing.  In  Hebrew  literature  the  personal 
memoir,  more  or  less  authentic,  filled  the  place  of  the 
novel;  and  Renan  points  to  the  books  of  Nehemiah  and 
Esdras  as  bearing  somewhat  the  same  relation.  The 
primitive  book  of  Tobias  had  the  form  of  souvenirs 
de  famille.  But  the  movement  was  neither  definite 
nor  serious.  It  did  not  affect  the  attitude  of  Josephus, 
whose  memoir  partakes  of  the  Roman  form.  The  words 
of  Josephus  boldly  accent  the  objective  note  in  the 
reason  he  states  for  writing  his  own  life :  — 

^'This  is  an  account  of  the  actions  of  my  life.  And 
let  others  judge  of  my  character  by  them  as  they 
please." 

Nothing  could  be  more  typical  than  this  of  the  pre- 
vailing tone  in  the  historical  record  or  commentary. 
The  attitude  of  Nebuchadnezzar  is  still,  in  essentials, 
the  attitude  of  Josephus:  ^' These  are  my  deeds;  judge 
by  them."  But  now  appears  an  entirely  new  conception, 
a  conception  altering  the  whole  subject,  and  developing 
so  rapidly  that  scarcely  three  hundred  years  after 
Josephus  we  may  place  beside  his  pages  the  first  pages 
of  Augustin's  Confessions:  — 

''This  is  the  fruit  of  my  confessions,  not  of  what  I  was 
but  of  what  I  am,  that  I  may  confess  this  not  before 


HISTORY  37 

Thee  only,  but  in  the  ears  also  of  the  believing  souls 
of  men.  ...  To  such,  therefore,  whom  Thou  com- 
mandest  me  to  serve,  will  I  declare  not  what  I  was, 
but  what  I  now  am,  and  what  I  still  am.  But 
neither  do  I  judge  myself.  Thus  then  I  would  be 
heard." 

When  analyzing  our  mental  development,  psycholo- 
gists have  divided  it  into  two  broad  stages:  the  objec- 
tive stage  of  childhood  preceding  the  subjective  stage 
of  maturity.  We  are  fond  of  recurring  to  this  idea;  and 
it  is  generally  assumed  that  what  is  true  of  the  individual 
development  will  hold  good  for  the  development  of  the 
race.  Nevertheless,  when  examined  closely,  these  sen- 
tences of  Augustin's  will  be  found  to  sound  a  new  note, 
a  music  which  has  not  before  struck  on  "the  ears  also 
of  the  believing  souls  of  men." 

Here,  surely,  is  not  a  slow  development  from  youth 
to  manhood;  but  rather  the  sudden  introduction  of  a 
novel  and  violent  influence.  From  the  date  of  the 
Birs-Ximrud  inscription  to  that  of  the  Monumen- 
tum  Ancyranum  is  a  space  of  something  over  two 
thousand  years:  while  from  the  typical  reason  of  Jose- 
phus  to  the  equally  typical  reason  of  Augustin  is  a 
little  less  than  three  hundred  years.  Surely,  no  simple 
process  of  mental  development  can  account  for  so  great 
a  difference  in  attitude  in  a  time  so  comparatively  short. 
Josephus  did  not  write  the  last  historical  memoir;  yet 
Augustin  did  write  the  first  complex,  subjective  auto- 


38  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

biography.  What  influence,  at  this  point,  upon  man's 
inner  life  has  caused  the  change? 

Although  it  has  been  little  studied,  the  theory  of  the 
subjective  influence  of  Christianity  on  literature  is  not 
a  new  one.  Writers  like  Gibbon,  Boissier,  Dill  and 
others,  touch  on  it  with  reserve,  more  inclined  to  accept 
the  broad  principles  which  psychology  has  laid  down 
for  them  than  to  attempt  a  modification  on  so  scanty 
an  amount  of  data.  Matthew  Arnold  becomes  ex- 
tremely suggestive  when  he  analyzes  the  ethical  effects 
of  Jesus'  teaching:  — 

*'To  find  his  own  soul,  his  true  and  permanent  self, 
becomes  set  up,  in  man's  view,  as  his  chief  concern." 
And,  again, — 

''Instead  of  attending  so  much  to  your  outward 
acts,  attend,  he  [Jesus]  said,  first  of  all  to  your  in- 
ward thoughts  and  to  the  state  of  your  heart  and 
feelings." 

These  sentences  cast  so  clear  a  light  upon  the  com- 
pared reasons  of  Josephus  and  Augustin  as  to  render  any 
further  comment  superfluous.  No  doubt  the  knowledge 
that  a  man's  actions  do  not  always  spring  from  his  ''true 
and  permanent  self"  helped  the  reaction.  No  doubt 
when  the  soldier-historian  wrote,  "Let  others  judge  of 
my  character  by  my  deeds  as  they  please,"  he  knew  that 
others  could  not  know  the  whole  self  of  Flavius  Jose- 
phus, not,  as  Augustin  was  to  phrase  it,  "what  I  now 
am,  and  what  I  still  am."    But  the  literary  conven- 


HISTORY  39 

tions  of  his  day  forced  Josephus  to  be  content;  and 
hence  the  defiant,  ''Judge  me  as  you  please!"  He  was 
attending  to  his  outward  acts,  not  to  his  inward 
thoughts  and  the  state  of  his  heart  and  feehngs. 

The  idea  of  the  value  of  introspection  once  started 
in  the  world  of  thought,  developed  rapidly  into  a  stand- 
ard. Monastic  life  tended  to  increase  its  force.  In 
Thomas  a  Kempis,  whose  expression  reflects  the  ideals 
of  mediaeval  piety,  it  is  clearly  stated  that  ''a  humble 
knowledge  of  thyself  is  a  surer  way  to  God  than  a  deep 
search  after  learning." 

"  It  is  better  for  a  man  to  live  privately  and  to  have  a 
regard  to  himself,  than  to  neglect  his  soul  though  he 
should  work  wonders  in  the  world." 

When  a  new  influence  acting  upon  thought  turns  it 
into  new  channels,  much  may  be  involuntarily  swept 
along  in  the  flood.  When  an  intellectual  change  is  in 
the  air,  even  those  wholly  outside  its  direct  influence 
may  yet  submit  to  its  effects.  The  most  violent  antago- 
nist to  the  modern  scientific  doctrines,  yet  finds  his 
whole  life  and  methods  of  thought  insensibly  altered  by 
them.  And  thus,  when  once  the  subjective  idea  had  be- 
come prevalent,  it  was  not  only  the  devout  Christian 
who  experienced  its  power.  The  Meditations  of  Mar- 
cus'Aurelius  Antoninus  are  his  personal  record,  just  as 
the  Monumentum  Ancyranum  was  that  of  Augustus. 
But  the  change  is  already  at  work;  the  difference  is 
something  beyond  the  mere  difference  between  an  essen- 


40  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tial  ruler  and  an  essential  philosopher.  When  Marcus 
Aurelius  starts  by  paying  tribute  to  his  teachers,  de- 
scribing his  faults,  his  virtues,  his  most  private  acts,  he 
stands  under  the  new  order.  His  work  is  not  complete, 
not  systematic  self-study,  it  is  fragmentary,  detached, 
and  not  clear  as  to  the  autobiographical  intention.  But 
his  underlying  idea  is  nearer  to  Augustin  than  to  Jose- 
phus;  and  although  a  manual  of  stoic  philosophy  and 
written  by  an  enemy  of  Christianity,  it  comes  so  near 
Christ's  doctrine  in  its  subjectivity  as  to  be  the  favorite 
reading  of  Christians.  It  marks  the  moment  of  change 
in  the  whole  trend  of  the  personal  record. 

We  noted  that  Josephus  did  not  write  the  last 
historical  memoir,  and  that  we  find  from  now  onward 
the  two  forms  of  personal  record  about  equally  in 
use.  In  Italy  and  Her  Invaders,  Mr.  Hodgkin  shows 
that  the  chronicle  and  commentary  had  become  the 
fashion  in  later  Roman  literature.  The  celebrated  pas- 
sage in  the  Agricola  of  Tacitus  is  worthy  of  quota- 
tion to  show  the  attitude  toward  them :  "  In  former 
times,  as  there  was  a  greater  propensity  and  freer  scope 
for  the  performance  of  actions  worthy  of  remembrance, 
so  every  person  of  distinguished  abilities  was  induced  by 
the  consciousness  of  doing  right  alone,  without  regard 
to  favor  or  interest,  to  record  examples  of  worth.  And 
many  considered  it  rather  as  a  proof  of  the  confidence 
of  virtue,  than  of  arrogance,  to  become  their  own  bio- 
graphers.   Of  this  Rutihus  and  Scaurus  are  instances, 


HISTORY  41 

who  yet  neither  underwent  reproach  nor  suspicion  of 
want  of  fidelity  on  this  account." 

Here  the  enthusiasm  of  the  historian,  eager  for  mate- 
rial, is  seen;  nor  was  such  material  denied  him,  for  be- 
sides Rutilius  Rufus  the  Consul,  and  Emilius  Scaurus, 
whose  three  books  of  his  own  life  are  addressed  to 
L.  Fufidius,  we  hear  also  that  Quintus  Lutatius  Catulus 
addressed  his  autobiography  to  A.  Furius,  the  poet, 
and  read  the  names  of  Valerius  Messala  Corvinus,  and 
of  Commodion,  author  of  a  Carmen  apologetica.  These 
documents  appear  to  be  largely  mere  courtier's  imita- 
tions of  throne  records.  Later,  and  under  the  direct  in- 
fluence of  Augustin,  came  the  Prejatio  of  Prudentius, 
and  that  other  curious  autobiographical  poem  by  Pauli- 
nus  of  Pella,  the  grandson  of  the  poet  Ausonius. 

The  Eucharisticos  de  Vita  Sua  was  written  at  eighty- 
three;  it  omits  politics,  events,  wars,  etc.,  and  confines 
itself  to  describing  Paulinus's  mental  and  religious  con- 
dition. He  recalls  his  education;  how  he  began  Plato 
and  Homer  at  five  years  of  age;  his  parents'  care  to  pro- 
tect his  innocence,  and  his  matter-of-course  amours 
with  the  slaves  of  the  house.  Paulinus  tells  of  ill-health, 
and  the  out-of-door  regimen  which  cured  it.  He  does 
not  leave  unmentioned  minor  characteristics  such  as 
his  extravagance;  and  he  calls  himself  ''sectator  deli- 
ciarum."  In  brief,  the  Eucharisticos  is  a  methodical 
piece  of  self-study,  showing  the  effect  of  Augustin,  and 
an  advance  in  fullness  and  method  upon  the  scattered 


42  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

notes  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  As  evidence  it  serves  at 
least  to  confirm  our  conclusion  that  the  impulse  to 
serious  introspection,  to  self-study,  made  its  appearance 
in  the  world  of  thought  between  100  and  400  a.d., 
during  the  period  when  the  Christian  faith  was  taking 
a  firm  hold  upon  society. 


CHAPTER  IV 

SINCERITY 

Our  reason  for  making  this  brief  historical  survey 
may  not  have  been  apparent  to  the  reader.  It  is  neces- 
sary, since  by  this  gradual  route  we  approach  the  great 
problem  of  the  trustworthiness  of  the  personal  record. 
This  is  a  question  with  which  nine  people  out  of  ten 
will  greet  such  an  attempt  as  the  present  study,  and 
most  of  them  will  be  ready  with  an  answer  before  a 
page  has  been  read.  What  warrant  have  we,  they  will 
ask,  of  the  sincerity  of  this  testimony? 

Before  we  can  meet  this  question  on  a  field  where  we 
have  many  and  stout  antagonists,  we  must  have  gained 
some  notion  from  what  the  autobiographical  impulse 
sprang,  and  what  influences  caused  it  to  become  sub- 
jective. If  it  seems  impossible  to  make  a  complete 
induction  from  the  evidence  at  our  disposal,  there  are 
at  least  a  few  suggestive  points  which  are  shown  by  the 
history  of  the  tendency  toward  subjectivity.  If  Chris- 
tianity is  not  wholly  responsible  for  the  subjective 
trend  of  literature  and  thought;  if  it  is  not  that,  indeed, 
which  we  mean  when  we  say  such  a  thing  is  modern^ 
we  have  at  least  determined  its  partial  responsibility. 
We  have  noted  the  appearance  of  this  subjective  trend 
coincident  with  the  time  in  which  Christian  ideas  were 


44  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

at  work  upon  men's  thought.  It  is  not,  therefore,  too 
much  to  insist  at  the  outset  on  the  seriousness  of  the 
self-study.  And  when  an  examination  is  made  of  the 
early  cases  and  their  influence,  the  very  existence  of 
that  influence  has  point  for  us.  One  man  writes  of 
himself  because  another  writes;  personal  impressions  are 
repeated  in  a  practically  unbroken  chain.  Few,  if  any, 
important  autobiographies  have  been  lost,  and  this  is, 
in  itself,  an  illuminative  circumstance.  With  the  ex- 
ception of  Sulla's  Commentaries,  whose  effect  upon 
Caesar  was  noted  by  his  contemporaries,  the  capital  au- 
tobiography has  survived,  and  preserved  its  fresh  effect 
on  later  minds,  more  than  any  other  type  of  literary 
work.  To  what  vital  quality  do  we  owe  this  tenacious 
survival?   We  reply:  sincerity. 

This  brings  us  at  once  face  to  face  with  the  task  for 
which  our  little  historical  axe  has  cleared  the  ground. 
How  can  we  best  estimate  the  sincerity  of  the  subjec- 
tive record?  It  is  doubted  upon  every  hand.  With  the 
litterateur  this  doubt  has  become  axiomatic.  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang  speaks  with  contempt  of  ' '  anecdotes 
which  people  tell  about  their  own  subjective  experi- 
ences." George  Eliot,  in  Theophrastus  Such,  says:  ''In 
all  autobiography  there  is,  nay,  ought  to  be,  an 
incompleteness  which  may  have  an  effect  of  falsity.  We 
are  each  of  us  bound  to  reticence  by  the  piety  we  owe  to 
those  who  have  been  nearest  to  us  .  .  .  and,  most 
of  all,  by  that  reverence  for  the  higher  efforts  of  our 


SINCERITY  45 

common  nature,  which  commands  us  to  bury  its  low- 
est faculties,  its  invincible  remnants  of  the  brute,  its 
most  agonizing  struggle,  with  temptation,  in  unbroken 
silence."  This  view  not  only  expresses  a  doubt  of  sin- 
cerity but  appears  to  give  insincerity  an  ethical  value, 
as  if  the  record  both  could  not  and  should  not  be  vera- 
cious and  complete.  Mr.  Augustine  Birrell  has  the  same 
cautious  attitude,  when  he  says  that,  "  '  Rousseau's 
Confessions'  ought  never  to  have  been  written;  but 
written  they  were,  and  read  they  always  will  be." 

To  some  minds,  the  fact  that  a  book  will  always  be 
read  constitutes  a  proof  of  its  value,  but  Mr.  Birrell's 
opinion  of  the  Confessions  is  a  very  common  one.  A 
great  autobiographer  is  perpetually  shrouded  in  a  veil 
of  comment  and  contradiction,  and  followed  by  a 
crowd  of  acquaintances,  correspondents,  and  distant 
relatives,  clamoring  to  give  him  the  lie.  Rousseau  is  a 
notable  case  in  point.  It  has  taken  one  hundred  years 
to  discover  that  the  pink-and-silver  ribbon  he  stole  from 
a  fellow-servant  was  not  a  diamond  nor  a  silver  dish, 
but  just  a  ribbon  of  pink-and-silver.  Pages  have  been 
written  about  the  error  he  made  in  the  date  of  his 
christening,  which  error  has  been  made  to  serve  as  a  text 
to  show  his  general  unreliability.  Any  chance  witness  of 
genius  in  some  one  of  its  passing  moods  is  sure  to  take 
such  mood  for  a  permanent  characteristic,  and  trium- 
phantly to  point  out  that  it  is  not  shown  in  the  auto- 
biography.  ^'  Not  to  be  relied  on":  the  book  is  waved 


46  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

aside;  ''A  man's  estimate  of  himself,  you  know/'  and 
so  on. 

To  the  serious  student  of  the  personal  record  it  would 
seem  that  there  lay  an  injustice  in  the  point  of  view. 
What,  on  the  whole,  do  we  require  from  the  autobio- 
grapher  as  an  excuse  for  his  existence?  That  he  should 
tell  us  the  detailed  facts  which  others  might  as  easily 
give,  or  that  he  should  flash  on  the  canvas  some  aspect  of 
the  human  figure  which  he  alone  knows?  Accuracy  as  to 
dates  is  needful  in  writing  anybody's  life,  but  more  need- 
ful still  is  a  vital  picture  of  the  creature  as  he  lived. 
Contemplating  human  nature  in  an  introspective  mood, 
one  must  be  prepared  to  find  in  self-study  a  certain 
looseness  as  to  exterior  matters.  The  eye  cannot  look 
both  in  and  out  at  the  same  time.  Many  important 
autobiographers  avoid  even  the  pretext  of  attention  to 
date  and  event.  Augustin  is  by  no  means  clear  as  to 
the  passage  of  time,  but  the  value  of  his  self-revelation 
is  not  thereby  lessened.  The  corrective  of  supplemen- 
tary study  is  readily  applied  to  amend  the  autobio- 
grapher  in  his  —  one  might  almost  say  essential  — - 
errors  of  memory,  to  balance  and  counteract  his  em- 
phasis on  certain  stages  of  his  intellectual  and  emotional 
progress.  These  mistakes  become  unimportant  in  pro- 
portion as  the  main  work  is  important.  The  object  of 
the  autobiographer  must  be  to  concentrate  on  that 
which  he  alone  knows  —  the  real  man.  As  Professor 
James  says,  he  aims  to  discover  primarily  states  of  con- 


SINCERITY  47 

sciousness.  If  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  in  the  Confes- 
sions be  the  Jean  Jacques  as  he  lived,  what  matter  the 
date  of  his  christening?  . 

Whether  the  aim  of  the  self-student,  moved  by  the 
autobiographical  intention,  is  to  present  such  a  figure, 
and  how  far  his  aim  is  realized — this  is  our  theme.  It  is 
surely  worthwhile  to  consider;  our  friends' sincerity  is  of 
deep  importance  to  us.  Comparisons  of  personality  and 
method,  examination  of  motives  and  their  fulfillment, 
cannot  fail  to  be  instructive.  They  will  help  to  show 
us  whether,  in  the  main,  one  can  rely  on  the  autobio- 
grapher.  For,  if  the  autobiographical  intention  springs 
from  deep-seated  psychological  conditions,  then  an 
avowed  reason  for  writing  possesses  a  value  it  has  not 
had  before,  as  showing  the  seriousness  and  the  motive 
power  of  such  an  intention. 

It  was  seen  a  few  pages  back  how  suggestive  was  the 
comparison  of  Cardan's  reason  for  writing  with  Cellini's, 
and  that  of  Augustin  with  Josephus's.  A  table  placed 
in  the  Appendix  will  show  at  a  glance  certain  similar 
comparisons  on  a  broad  scale,  using  as  a  basis  about 
265  capital  autobiographies.^ 

Out  of  the  265  cases,  38  write  without  any  giyeEL 
reason  at  all;  52  write  frankly  for  amusement,  to  recall 
the  past,  or  to  record  some  extraordinary  event;  64 
write  in  the  interest  of  self-study  and  of  science;  42  as 
religious  testimonials ;  26  for  the  use  of  children  or  de- 
*  See  Appendix  A,  "Reasons  for  Writing." 


48  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

scendants;  15  at  the  request  of  friends;  12  because  no 
one  else  is  likely  to  do  it;  11  from  apologetic  motives; 
1  "to  emblazon  the  power  of  opium  "(De  Quincey); 
1  from  pride  of  birth;  1  for  self-abasement;  1  for  money; 
1  to  study  his  own  case  of  insanity;  and  1  to  polish  hi3 
Latin. 

It  becomes  at  once  apparent  that  the  serious  and 
laudable  motives  for  writing  are  in  the  ascendant.  Of 
the  52  whose  reason  is  purely  objective,  a  subdivision 
has  been  made,  showing  that  a  certain  proportion  ful- 
fill in  their  task  the  main  requirements  of  scientific 
self-study. 

The  request  of  friends,  which,  at  first  sight,  one  would 
have  supposed  to  have  actuated  by  far  the  larger  num- 
ber, is  the  given  reason  of  only  15.  Such  weighty  mo- 
tives as  sciences,  religion,  or  the  benefits  to  descendants, 
move  126  on  this  list.  Yet  Lombroso  *  speaks  of  the 
"rare  instances"  when  vanity  permits  men  of  genius 
to  yield  spontaneous  revelations  of  themselves! 

Among  those  writing  frankly  in  the  interests  of 
truth,  we  find  such  persons  as  Alfieri,  Gibbon,  Cardan, 
Egerton  Brydges,  Mill,  Goethe,  Rousseau,  George  Sand, 
Descartes,  Erasmus,  and  Herbert  Spencer.  The  simpli- 
city of  Charles  Darwin  includes  him  among  those  who 
write  for  pastime,  together  with  La  Grande  Mademoi- 
selle, Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  Madame  Roland,  etc.  Seriously 
affectionate  persons  such  as  Marmontel,  Franklin,  and 
'  "Man  of  Genius,"  Part  VL 


SINCERITY  49 

Agrippa  d'Aubign^  write  to  aid  or  warn  their  children. 
The  diverse  religious  views  of  Newman,  Augustin,  and 
George  Fox,  Annie  Besant,  Tolstoi,  and  Teresa,  have 
inspired  personal  testimony.  Extremes  of  fortune  are 
told  by  CoUey  Gibber,  Trench,  Latude,  Hans  Andersen: 
apologies  for  ill  behavior  by  such  as  Ireland  and  Psal- 
manazar.  Oddly  enough,  there  is  but  one  person  of  all 
this  noble  company  who  writes  avowedly  for  money. 
It  is  John  Gait,  the  novelist,  and  he  adds  that  '^it  is  not 
a  very  gentlemanly  occupation."  This  attitude  is  but 
a  part  of  his  whole  contempt  of  literary  pursuits,  which 
he  quite  openly  despised,  always  hoping  that  he  might 
do  something  more  useful  than  ''stringing  blethers  into 
rhyme,  or  writing  clishmaclavers  in  a  closet."  There  is 
nothing  more  irritating  to  the  reader  than  the  success 
of  this  person,  who  left  business,  he  tells  us,  ''sullenly'' 
to  devote  himself  to  "the  fancy-work  of  letters."  One 
even  feels  unsympathetic  when  reading  that  Gait's 
later  years  were  clouded  by  an  obscure  nervous  disease. 

If  sincerity  seems  to  have  been  promised  by  the  large 
number  of  autobiographies  seriously  conceived  and  ex- 
ecuted in  the  interest  of  self-study  and  scientific  truth, 
it  may  be  well  to  note  how  deep  an  impression  the  need 
for  candor  has  made  upon  the  mind  of  the  writer.  His 
style  here,  his  tone  and  accent,  the  weight  of  the  initial 
motive,  are  all  of  value,  and,  perchance,  may  serve  to 
do  away  with  such  an  airy  scorn  as  Mr.  Lang's. 

"Truth,  naked,  unblushing  truth,"  said  Gibbon,  "the 


60  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

first  virtue  of  serious  history,  must  be  the  sole  recom- 
mendation of  this  personal  narrative." 

'^To  speak,  and  therefore  even  more  to  write  of  oneself 
springs  doubtless  from  self-love,"  declares  Alfieri,  ''  and 
the  scope  of  a  work  hke  this  is  the  study  of  mankind.  Of 
what  man  can  he  better  or  more  wisely  speak  than  him- 
self —  what  other  has  he  studied  so  well?  " 

''  Private  History,"  in  the  estimate  of  Sir  Egerton 
Brydges,  "enables  us  to  ascertain  our  author's  sincer- 
ity; and  that  is  essential  to  the  authority  of  his  opinions. 
I  labor,  therefore,  to  estimate  with  rigid  and  stern  en- 
quiry what  faculties  of  the  mind  ought  most  to  prevail." 

The  lively  Bussy-Rabutin  furnishes  us  with  a  reason 
for  entire  sincerity  which  is  that  of  a  nian  of  the  world: 
"  Je  ne  serai  ni  assez  vain  ni  assez  ridicule  pour  me  louer 
sans  raison;  mais  aussi  n'aurai-je  pas  une  assez  sotte 
honte  pour  ne  pas  dire  de  moi  des  choses  avantageuses 
quand  ce  seront  des  v6rit6s,"  he  writes;  and  this  state- 
ment is  doubly  interesting  when  we  find  how  very  few 
*'  choses  avantageuses  "  to  himself  he  finds  to  tell! 

Charles  Darwin,  who  writes  because  "  I  have  thought 
the  attempt  might  amuse  me  or  might  possibly  interest 
my  children,"  goes  on  to  say:  "I  have  attempted  to 
write  the  following  account  of  myself  as  if  I  were  a 
dead  man  in  another  world  looking  back  at  my  own 
life." 

Even  Gozzi,  who  took  memoir  writing  so  lightly 
that  he  names  his  book  "Memorie  inutili  della  vita  di  C. 


SINCERITY  61 

Gozzi,  pubblicate  per  umilta,"  yet  speaks  of  "the 
detailed  portrait  I  intend  to  execute  of  myself." 

Haydon,  the  painter,  has  left  us  one  of  the  most  sug- 
gestive autobiographies  that  was  ever  placed  side  by 
side  with  the  journals  which  furnished  its  material. 
It  is  one  to  which  we  shall  have  much  occasion  to  refer, 
and  here  it  were  well  to  cite  one  sentence,  in  its  original 
typographical  form:  ".  .  .  A  biography  derives  its  sole 
interest  and  ability  from  its  Exact  Truth.^^ 

The  reason  which  Mademoiselle  d'Orleans  gives  for  her 
faithful  and  valuable  record,  is  the  frank  ennui  that 
she  felt  when  banished  from  court  life.  "  It  is  hard  to 
conceive,''  she  maintains,  "  with  what  things  the  mind 
of  a  person  accustomed  to  court  can  occupy  itself  when 
reduced  to  living  in  the  country !  .  .  .  But  I  shall  bring 
to  these  pages  all  I  can  remember  from  my  childhood 
to  this  hour,  as  exactly  as  is  possible  to  me."  And  she 
keeps  her  word. 

Compare  Mademoiselle  with  another  French  woman, 
one  who  understood  the  power  and  the  limitations  of  the 
autobiography  as  perhaps  none  other. 

"  Pour  certains  esprits,"  says  George  Sand,  '*  se 
connaitre  est  une  etude  fastidieuse  et  tou jours  incom- 
plete." And  the  Histoire  de  ma  Vie  she  declared  to  be 
"une  etude  sincere  de  ma  propre  nature,  et  un  examen 
attentif  de  ma  propre  existence." 

These  examples  have  been  gathered  at  random,  and 
enough  have  been  shown  to  serve  our  purpose.   One 


52  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

might  go  on  and  cite  as  many  more  if  space  permitted. 
The  above  will  show,  at  least,  that  the  psychologist  and 
scientist  who  takes  the  memoir  seriously  is  more  reason- 
able than  the  litterateur  who  derides  its  truth.  Surely, 
if  a  purpose  and  an  ideal  of  sincerity  have  been  found 
in  autobiographers  so  unlike  in  temperament,  gifts, 
and  character  as  these,  one  may  infer  that  they  form  a 
part  of  the  autobiographical  intention,  when  that  is 
strong  and  definite. 

But  here  we  are  interrupted  by  our  cynical  littera- 
teur. ''Ah,"  he  cries,  "what  avails  protest?  The  asser- 
tion that  one  means  to  tell  the  truth  is  nothing!" 

"According  to  your  own  lights,  cher  monsieur, ^^  we 
may  fitly  reply,  ''lights  cast  from  scattered  and  often 
trivial  reading,  you  have  cause  to  think  so.  Single 
cases  of  protest  would  have  little  significance  and  less 
value.  The  assertion  from  John  Stuart  Mill,  let  us  say, 
that  he  intends  to  be  truthful,  would  simply  increase 
your  own  feeling  of  self-distrust.  Would  ijou  tell  how 
you  cheated  at  school  and  won  the  prize?  Or  that 
in  your  heart  of  hearts  you  hourly  desire  the  death  of 
the  stupid  elder  brother  who  stands  in  your  way  of 
the  dukedom?  Certainly  not;  you  would  die  first!  Ergo 
neither  would  John  Stuart  Mill  .  .  .  But,  then,  cher 
monsieur,  you  have  not  the  autobiographical  intention. 
You  are  not,  be  it  said  with  all  due  respect,  an  important 
person.  You  are  neither  Alfieri,  Charles  Darwin,  Car- 
dan, nor  Rousseau.    The  imperious  lash  of  Truth  upon 


SINCERITY  63 

the  neck  of  the  great,  that  fretful  urging  to  candor, 
is  one  of  the  many  differences  between  them  and 
ourselves.  And  when  we  observe  it  acting  as  an  in- 
fluence, not  upon  one  able  person,  but  (to  take  only 
one  group)  upon  61  able  persons,  we  may  believe  that 
it  forms  a  component  part  of  some  quaUty  to  which, 
as  the  mediocre,  we  are  forced  regretfully  to  renounce 
all  claim,  but  which  we  must,  nevertheless,  recognize 
in  action,  and  respect  in  result." 

It  is  time  we  dropped  our  glib  generalizations,  and 
acknowledged  the  different  standards  of  greater  men. 
A  superior  sincerity,  a  more  penetrative  candor,  — 
these  are  tokens  of  their  greatness  and  a  reason  for 
their  survival.  Yet  the  reader  must  not  jump  to  the 
conclusion  that  we  do  not  differentiate  between  accu- 
racy in  detail  and  accuracy  in  portraiture.  It  is  not  for 
a  single  instant  asserted  that  Rousseau  gave  the  correct 
date  of  his  christening;  that  George  Sand  felt  for 
Frederic  Chopin  only  ''une  passion  maternelle  tr^s 
vive,  tres  vraie,"  as  the  Histoire  de  ma  Vie  asserts; 
that  Guibert  de  Nogent's  mother  struggled  all  night 
with  a  demon  who  upset  the  furniture;  or  that  Jerome 
Cardan  learned  Greek  in  a  dream.  But  it  is  claimed, 
and  it  would  seem  capable  of  proof,  that  the  personali- 
ties of  those  autobiographers  whose  work  is  inspired  by 
a  serious  intention,  and  executed  by  an  able  hand,  are, 
in  their  main  aspects,  truthfully  portrayed.  Further, 
that  they  are  more  truthful,  more  complete,  than  the 


54  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

same  figures  drawn  by  an  outside  pencil.  And  this  is 
logical.  What  makes  Boswell  so  great  a  biographer,  but 
the  ability  to  let  his  hero  reveal  himself  at  every  turn, 
in  every  event  and  mood? 

Before  leaving  this  aspect  of  the  subject  it  were  well 
to  see  whether  biography,  as  a  whole,  supports  or 
contradicts  the  autobiographer.  To  name  a  life  of  every 
one  of  our  chief  cases  is,  of  course,  out  of  the  ques- 
tion; we  must  restrict  ourselves  to  the  more  sahent 
figures.  Let  us  only  ask  the  cher  monsieur,  so  sceptical 
of  the  whole  business,  to  name  a  life  of  Rousseau,  in 
which  the  personality  differs  as  a  'personality  from 
that  drawn  in  the  Confessions.  The  standard  lives 
of  Alfieri,  Goldoni,  Mill,  Mademoiselle  d'Orleans  — 
great  autobiographers  all — rely  completely  and  naively 
upon  them  for  all  intimate  aspects  of  the  subject. 
Watson's  life  of  George  Fox  avowedly  draws  its 
matter  from  the  Journal.  Morrison's  life  of  Edward 
Gibbon  does  the  same.  The  figure  of  Benvenuto 
Cellini  stands  out  unchallenged,  in  all  its  vigor  and 
color,  through  the  centuries.  Jerome  Cardan's  bitterest 
enemies  refer  to  the  De  Vita  Propria  Liber,  as  an 
exact  picture  of  his  extraordinary  personality.  Even 
in  the  case  of  George  Sand's  Histoire  de  ma  Vie —  a 
book  wherein  we  know  there  has  been  a  hiatus,  and  in 
which  the  central  figure,  though  perfect  in  parts,  is  un- 
deniably mutilated  —  there  has  recently  been  conclu- 
sive testimony.   In  the  preface  to  her  life  by  Wladimir 


SINCERITY  55 

Karenine,  and  that  to  the  volume  entitled  George 
Sand  et  sa  Fille,  by  Samuel  Rocheblave,  we  find  the 
authors  declaring  that  by  the  most  minute  researches 
they  have  been  unable  to  alter  the  personal  impression 
of  the  Histoire  in  a  single  material  particular.  Simi- 
larly, in  a  well-balanced  English  biography  of  George 
Sand,  the  author  speaks  of  'Hhe  profound  truth  of  the 
spirit  of  the  narrative,"  and  acknowledges  it  as  *Hhe 
important  source"  of  all  accounts  of  her  early  life. 

What  the  student  and  biographer  has  done,  you  and 
I  may  do  w^ithout  distrust.  It  seems  undeniable  that 
the  majority  of  capital  autobiographies  have  been 
written  in  the  interest  of  truth,  and  are  the  outcome  of 
serious  intention,  the  result  of  a  deep-seated  psycho- 
logical impulse,  which,  as  a  whole,  makes  for  the  truth. 
The  figures  which  are  drawn  under  these  conditions, 
therefore,  we  believe  to  be,  in  the  main,  the  figures  of 
the  persons  as  they  lived. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY,  THE  DIARY,  AND  THE 
LETTER 

It  is  George  Sand  who  stands  beside  the  reader  to 
remind  him  that  "  Tetude  du  coeur  humain  est  de  telle 
nature  que  plus  on  s'y  absorbe  moins  on  y  voit  clair." 
Self-distrust,  appreciation  of  the  danger  and  deceits  of 
self-contemplation,  has  inspired  certain  generalizations 
which  pass  about  easily  from  lip  to  lip,  until  mere  repe- 
tition seems  about  to  make  truths  of  them.  It  is  in  the 
letter  and  the  diary,  rather  than  in  the  deliberate  auto- 
biography, that  we  are  told  to  look  for  the  valuable 
self-revelation.  Everybody  has  heard  the  phrases  into 
which  this  idea  has  been  cast:  "  Not  written  for  the 
public  eye,  but  in  the  privacy  of  the  closet.  —  In  his 
letters  a  man  lets  himself  go." 

It  seems  almost  inconsiderate  to  deprive  conversa- 
tion of  its  conveniences  by  introducing  the  element  of 
thought.  The  stupid  and  the  banal  are  cut  off  from 
their  part  in  it  when  the  question  is  asked:  "  Is  this 
true?  "  But  one  has  entered  here  a  field  where  the  dull 
and  the  trite  have  rioted  for  years  without  contradiction. 
This  is  a  pet  topic,  a  stronghold  of  the  inept.  Should 
anyone  doubt  this,  let  him  make  a  remark  about  the  use 
of  self-study  in  any  mixed  assemblage,  not  too  young. 


THE   DLVRY   AND   THE   LETTER  57 

He  is  sure  to  hear  the  phrases  just  quoted,  to  catch  the 
name  of  Rousseau,  — fondly  believed  to  be  the  parent  of 
this  iniquity,  —  and  to  note  much  head-wagging  over 
the  deceitfulness  of  the  human  heart.  It  were  perhaps 
cruel  to  remind  these  respectable  persons  that  their  own 
self-analysis  might  have  a  less  value  and  sincerity  than 
that  of  Augustin,  or  Herbert  Spencer;  or  that  the  desire 
to  see  oneself  clearly  is  part  of  an  intellectual  initiative 
from  which  they  are  free.  The  factor  which  gives  value 
to  personal  evidence  is  the  relative  importance  of  the 
subject;  and  it  is  the  sense  of  his  otvti  inadequacy 
which  causes  Vhomme  sensuel  moyen  to  cry  out  so 
loudly  against  the  whole  business. 

Vhomme  sensuel  moyen,  having  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  posterity  has  any  concern  with  him,  can 
imagine  himself  jotting  his  introspections  upon  a  diary 
in  a  corner  of  the  billiard-room,  over  a  glass  of 
brandy-and-soda,  when  the  idea  of  self -study  in  writing 
his  life  would  seem  factitious.  Does  this  same  attitude 
prevail  with  those  individuals  whose  gifts  make  the 
judgment  of  posterity  inevitable?  We  are  here  to  de- 
cide. The  case  of  the  conscious  vs.  the  unconscious 
self-revelation,  must  be  heard  and  dismissed  before  we 
can  reach  the  further  point  toward  which  we  aim. 

The  partisans  of  the  diary  and  the  letter  claim  that 
their  very  ephemeral  character  causes  them  to  be  the 
more  trustworthy  media  of  the  writer's  individuality. 
Yet  examination  in  sequence  of  a  series  of  important 


58  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

journals  does  not,  by  any  means,  corroborate  this  view. 
Had  Saint-Simon  published  only  those  journals  which  he 
later  revised  and  bound  into  a  coherent  narrative,  how 
much  of  his  personality  might  not  have  been  lost !  Such 
diaries  as  Evelyn's  or  Greville's  aim  chiefly  at  presenting 
the  daily  historical  and  political  events  of  their  time. 
Neither  contains  self-revelation  of  any  real  importance. 
As  for  the  inestimable  Pepys,  whom  a  grateful  reader 
would  not  undervalue,  his  glance  goes  not  beyond  the 
day.  The  man  is  shown  to  us  in  pieces,  fragments 
thrown  into  the  occurrences  which  he  describes;  his  eye 
is  on  the  event;  and,  although  we  delight  in  the  picture, 
we  know  that  much  has  been  lost.  That  first  volume  of 
Fanny  Burney's  Journal  conveys  most  of  its  total  effect, 
and  is  weighted  with  a  distinct  autobiographical  in- 
tention, which  is  not,  however,  sustained.  And  in  pro- 
portion as  this  idea  was  abandoned,  and  the  mere  daily 
jottings  kept,  the  work  loses  in  vigor  and  in  vividness. 
The  constructive  touch  is  needed  here,  as  in  other  liter- 
ary work,  to  carry  conviction.  Scott's  Journal  contains 
the  noble  record  of  his  adversity,  but  it  was  taken  up  too 
late  in  life  to  serve  us  as  a  satisfactory  picture  of  his  char- 
acter, had  we  not  been  fortunately  able  to  supplement  it 
by  the  fragment  of  Autobiography  with  which  Lockhart 
begins  the  Life.  It  is  to  this,  not  to  the  Journal,  we  owe 
our  knowledge  of  the  fundamentals  of  Scott's  character. 
In  Moore's  Journal  we  are  perpetually  troubled  by  a 
sense  of  the  trifling  details  and  happenings  which  come 


THE   DL4RY   AND   THE   LETTER  59 

in  a  cloud  between  us  and  the  figure  of  the  kindly,  little 
man,  and  which,  in  a  deliberate  narrative,  would  have 
been  put  aside  as  unimportant.  In  his  unfinished 
memoirs  they  are  so  put  aside.  This  has  brought  us  to 
the  first  point,  that  the  main  difference  between  diary 
and  autobiography  lies  in  an  increased  sense  of  pro- 
portion in  the  latter,  whose  first  object  is  to  clear  away 
everything  which  may  come  between  you  and  the  sub- 
ject. Also  it  is  interesting  that  Moore's  editor.  Lord 
Russell,  should  remark  on  the  fact  that  Moore's  ideal 
of  himself  as  a  literary  figure  caused  his  journal  to  be 
filled  with  London  visits  and  suppers  with  celebrities,  so 
that  one  might  suppose  his  time  far  more  occupied 
with  them  than  was  really  the  case.  The  well-balanced 
account  of  his  childhood  and  youth  in  the  Memoir  falls 
into  no  such  error,  since  the  desire  here  is  of  self-study, 
not  merely  to  recall  an  amusing  story,  or  to  record  a 
gay  evening,  or  to  see  in  one's  diary  the  names  of  per- 
sons prominent  in  literature. 

When  we  examine  correspondence,  we  find  no  cause  to 
change  this  impression;  it  is,  indeed,  the  usual  attitude 
of  the  more  scrupulous  commentator.  Readers  of  the 
great  letter-writers,  of  Voltaire  and  Goethe,  of  Petrarch 
and  Cicero,  of  Madame  de  Sevigne  and  Madame  du 
Deffand,  do  not  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  warnings 
they  have  received  from  the  editors  of  these  collections 
not  to  allow  themselves  to  be  hurried  away  too  quickly 
by  their  sympathy  with  the  writer.   Words  are  an  effer- 


60  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

vescence  of  mood  thrown  hastily  upon  paper,  often  the 
result  of  a  desire  to  experiment  with  oneself,  to  create 
a  non-existent  feeling,  to  rouse  a  dormant  emotion, 
or  to  prick  some  mere  vexation  into  active  anger.  Here 
is  matter  for  exaggeration  and  with  no  corrective.  For 
in  the  page  of  the  diary  or  the  letter  a  man  may  indulge 
himself  —  he  may,  in  the  ordinary  phrase,  "  let  himself 
go."  And  if  the  reader  is  tempted  to  think  that  the 
truth  is  more  apt  to  come  to  the  surface  when  a  man 
"  lets  himself  go,"  we  can  only  beg  him  to  apply  the 
same  standard  to  himself  in  a  similiar  case.  The  pre- 
dominance of  mood,  the  lack  of  self-restraint,  which 
means  the  "  letting  oneself  go,"  form,  in  themselves, 
a  onesidedness,  which  is  a  kind  of  insincerity.  Lavater's 
Journal,  which  he  called  The  Secret  History  of  a  Self- 
observer,  is  a  notable  example  of  such  disproportion. 
His  perpetual  self-questioning  provoked  no  truthful 
replies  in  his  soul.  And  when  his  servant-maid  is 
sullen  on  being  summoned,  and  his  comment  is,  *'  Her 
answer  did  not  provoke  me,  and  it  made  me  quite 
proud  I  was  not  angry,"  the  reader  is  convinced  neither 
that  the  introspection  is  true,  nor  valuable,  nor  even  that 
Lavater  was  not  provoked,  nor  proud  that  he  was  not. 
But  when  the  letter- writer  or  journalist  sits  to  ex- 
plain himself  to  the  audience  of  posterity,  or  to  plead 
his  cause  before  the  jury  of  the  coming  generations,  has 
he  not  a  powerful  incentive  to  ask:  "  Is  this  true? 
Was  this  vexation  of  mind  wholly  real  —  was  the  true 


THE   DIARY   AND   THE   LETTER  61 

inwardness  of  my  wounded  feeling  made  plain  to  me 
when  I  wrote  under  its  sting  ?  " 

In  other  words,  is  not  the  autobiographical  intention 
a  weighty  corrective  to  bring  hasty  moods  into  measure? 

This  whole  question  of  imagination  in  the  letter- 
writer  and  its  exaggeration  of  the  fleeting  mood  is  dis- 
cussed with  fullness  and  finish  by  M.  Gaston  Boissier, 
in  his  fascinating  volume  on  Cicero  and  his  Friends } 
It  is  impossible  to  express  better  than  he  does  how 
these  fugitive  thoughts  are  "  only  flashes  .  .  .  fixed 
and  accentuated  by  writing,  they  acquire  a  clearness, 
a  relief  and  importance  which  they  had  not  in  reality." 
If  this  be  true  of  all  written  self-revelation,  then,  surely 
the  existence  of  a  powerful  motive  to  act  as  corrective 
comes  to  have  a  deeper  significance. 

However,  the  examination  of  single  examples  of 
diarist  and  letter-writer  cannot  be  conclusive.  The  best 
method  of  estimating  comparative  sincerity  is  surely  to 
take  cases  like  Scott  or  Moore  in  which  exist  both  the 
autobiography  and  the  journal  from  which  its  material 
was  drawn,  so  that  we  may  contrast  our  impressions. 
These  are  not  so  rare  as  one  would  think. 

No  one  can  forget  the  quarrel  between  Rousseau  and 
Madame  d'Epinay,  nor  could  anything  be  more  suggest- 
ive as  an  illustration  of  this  point  than  a  comparison 
of  the  Confessions,  the  Memoires  de  Madame  d^Epinay, 
and  their  letters  on  the  subject.  The  entire  corre- 
*  "Cic6ron  et  ses  Amis,"  Introduction. 


62  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

spondence  has  been  preserved,  and  letters  passed  be- 
tween the  two  insulted  dignities  with  the  fullness  and 
frequency  to  which  annoyance  spurs  the  literary  habit. 
In  these  letters  we  find  Jean  Jacques  breathing  out- 
raged sensibility  and  insulted  affection.  To  hear  him, 
one  would  believe  the  difference  arose  from  the  righteous 
wrath  of  a  finally-roused  patience,  and  had  its  root  in 
complicated  spiritual  misunderstandings,  such  as  cloud 
the  pages  of  Mr.  Henry  James.  With  both  the  correspon- 
dents, those  large  words,  sensitiveness,  friendship, 
loyalty,  obligation,  appear  in  every  other  sentence. 
Hear  the  chatelaine  de  VErmitage  in  her  own  defense, 
prefacing  that  her  Memoires,  written  under  the  form  of 
fiction,  have  no  serious  intention,  but  are  a  mere  stage- 
setting  for  her  idea  of  her  own  romantic  situation.  She 
suggests,  however,  in  her  comments  on  the  letters,  the 
fact  that  Rousseau's  lack  of  business  sense  made  any 
satisfactory  arrangement  between  them  impossible;  and 
her  attitude  is  that  of  a  patroness  whose  good  humor 
has  been  taken  for  granted  once  too  often.  There  is 
not  a  hint  of  sentiment. 

Knowing  Jean  Jacques,  we  expect  the  Confessions 
to  give  fully  his  own  side  of  the  quarrel.  Surely,  he 
will  not  abate  the  majestic  attitude!  On  the  contrary, 
we  find  him  describing  the  difference  exactly  as  it  was; 
the  contest  of  two  greedy  vanities,  having  its  origin  in  a 
dispute  as  to  which  should  pay  the  gardener's  wages. 
Is  it  necessary   to  say    that  the    gardener,  in  se,  is 


THE   DIARY   AND   THE   LETTER  63 

practically  suppressed  in  the  letters?  He  has  become 
symbolized,  he  is  servitude,  he  is  obligation.  By  the 
pen  of  Madame,  whose  intention  is  not  serious,  the 
vague,  general  reference  to  a  financial  origin  of  their 
difference  is  yet  made,  notwithstanding  that  it  de- 
tracts from  her  romantic  position.  And  in  the  Confes- 
sions,  result  of  a  powerful  autobiographical  intention, 
powerfully  executed,  the  whole  truth  is  written  out, 
no  matter  what  light  it  casts  upon  the  large  terms  in 
the  letters.  To  those  of  us  who  know  Jean  Jacques, 
which  aspect  of  the  quarrel  is  the  more  convincing? 
One  example  more:  in  the  Tom  Taylor  edition,  the 
autobiography  of  Benjamin  Robert  Hay  don  is  bound 
up  with  the  journals  which  were  its  source.  Now,  with 
Hay  don  mood  is  everything;  his  intensity  of  thought 
and  expression  wraps  him  in  it,  and  his  lack  of  measure 
is  an  inherent  quality.  He  is  also  a  man  -mth  a 
grievance;  he  lived  in  terrible  financial  straits;  he  ended 
in  delusions  of  persecution,  in  madness,  in  suicide.  His 
is  a  case  which  vdW  either  make  or  break  us,  for  he  has 
little  self-control;  he  turns  with  a  fierce,  stern  pleading, 
and  begs  us  to  see  and  to  understand.  He  has  no 
superficial  cleverness,  he  will  stand  or  fall  alone.  Dur- 
ing a  crisis  in  his  affairs  and  while  he  is  finishing  a 
cartoon,  Haydon  speaks,  in  the  Autobiography,  of  his 
"  gasping  anxiety"  at  this  time,  and  writes:  "  My  mind 
wanted  the  discipline  of  early  training."  As  the  work 
^, grows,  Haydon  gives  us  the  prayer  of  his  soul:   ^'  Never 


64  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

have  I  had  such  irresistible  and  perpetual  urgings  of 
future  greatness;  while  I  was  painting,  writing  or  think- 
ing, beaming  flashes  of  energy  followed  and  impressed 
me.  O  God,  grant  they  may  be  the  fiery  anticipations 
of  a  great  soul  born  to  realize  them!  " 

This  is  painfully  intense,  in  truth,  yet  compare  it 
with  the  Journal  of  the  same  period :  — 

*' How  delightfully  time  flies  when  one  paints,"  he 
jots  on  one  page.  The  succeeding  entry  is:  *' Painted 
in  delicious  and  exquisite  misery."  Then:  "  Thank  God 
with  all  my  soul  the  very  name  of  high  art  —  the  very 
thought  of  a  picture  —  gives  my  children  a  hideous  and 
disgusting  taste  in  the  mouth." 

And,  the  next  day:  ''Huzza!  huzza!  huzza!  my  car- 
toon is  up!" 

If  self-control  counts  as  an  element  in  a  writer's  sin- 
cerity, if  there  is  any  value  in  the  study  of  our  past 
moods  and  feelings,  it  is  not  lightly  indicated  in  this 
comparison.  The  horrible  alternations  of  poor  Hay- 
don's  mood,  intensified  and  exaggerated  by  the  self- 
indulgence  of  his  diary,  are  brought  into  some  degree 
of  measure  and  understanding  when  he  comes  to  put 
them  before  the  public  eye.  The  mere  fact  of  an 
audience  causes  him  to  examine  them  more  nearly,  to 
remember  and  bring  forward  that  lack  of  discipline  from 
early  training  which  accounts  for  the  lack  of  balance. 
The  desire  of  candor  and  of  completeness  has  laid  hold 
of  him.   So  we  have  found  the  autobiographer  reveal- 


THE   DIARY   AND   THE   LETTER  65 

ing  weaknesses  and  errors  which  he  has  sedulously  con- 
cealed in  his  intercourse  with  friends,  in  his  diary  or 
letters,  and  which  need  never  have  been  known  at  all 
but  for  the  prick  of  this  influence.  Sometimes  these 
are  frank  sins;  sometimes  merely  such  ungraciousnesses 
as  do  a  man  no  credit  for  avowing.  Why  was  Gibbon 
at  such  pains  to  tell  us,  on  the  occasion  of  his  father's 
death:  "The  tears  of  a  son  are  seldom  lasting.  Few, 
perhaps,  are  the  children  who  after  the  expiration  of 
many  months  would  sincerely  rejoice  in  the  restoration 
of  their  parents,"  except  that  he  believed  it  to  be  the 
truth? 

In  her  autobiography,  Catherine  II  of  Russia  plainly 
states  that  the  father  of  her  son  and  heir,  Peter,  was 
Soltykov,  a  fact  about  which  there  was  much  discussion 
and  which  was  of  great  political  importance.  Yet  she 
commits  it  to  paper,  although  it  was  the  very  last  thing 
one  could  imagine  her  admitting.  The  Cardinal  de 
Retz  says:  ''Je  pris,  apres  six  jours  de  reflexion,  le  parti 
de  faire  le  mal  par  dessein  .  .  .  ce  qui  est  sans  com- 
paraison  le  plus  criminel  devant  Dieu,  mais  sans  doute 
le  plus  sage  devant  le  monde." 

The  mention  by  Benjamin  Franklin  of  certain 
offences  which  he  calls  errata,  is  not  only  perfectly 
gratuitous,  but  distinctly  calculated  to  lower  that 
public  esteem  for  which  he  had  striven.  Acts  like 
Cellini's  stab  of  a  comrade  in  the  back,  the  gambling 
transactions  of  Cardan,  and  minor  meannesses  of  Rous- 


66  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

seau,  would  never  have  risen  to  the  surface  at  all  had 
their  authors  chosen  to  keep  silence.  No  diary  pre- 
served them,  one  may  be  sure.  Nor  does  a  morbid 
strain,  the  lack  of  sense  of  humor,  account  for  their 
appearance.  One  could  hardly  call  Franklin,  Cellini, 
or  Catherine  II  morbid;  and  if  Gibbon  lacked  humor, 
it  chances  to  be  definitely  present  in  Cellini,  Cardan,  and 
de  Retz. 

No;  the  endeavor  to  stand  for  what  we  are,  springs 
from  a  deeper  motive,  a  more  serious  psychological  con- 
dition, than  the  litterateur  is  willing  to  allow.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  for  instance,  writing  on  Pepys,  com- 
ments on  his  subject's  candor  with  amazement.  He 
cannot  understand  why  Pepys  recorded  actions  avow- 
edly best  left  unrecorded,  and  he  speaks  of  him  as  an 
isolated  phenomenon.  This  is  only  another  case  to 
prove  how  much  the  critic  has  need  of  the  psychologist. 
He  would,  otherwise,  fail  to  note  an  influence  present 
as  a  motive-power  in  natures  ethically  deficient,  such 
as  Cellini,  de  Retz,  or  Psalmanazar,  the  impostor.  It 
acts  as  corrective  to  the  religious  fanatic  who  wishes  to 
show  you  a  miserable  sinner  transformed  into  a  saint, 
yet  who  feels  obliged  to  tell  you,  like  George  Fox,  that 
even  before  his  conversion  people  loved  him  for  his 
''innocency  and  honesty."  Trembling,  as  she  believes, 
upon  the  brink  of  hell-fire,  Teresa  gives  us  the  bril- 
liant portrait  of  her  girlish  self,  whom  everyone  always 
saw  with  pleasure, — ''on  m'a  toujours  vu  avec  plaisir.'* 


THE   DIARY   AND   THE   LETTER  67 

It  is  this  which,  in  the  deliciously  naive  memoirs  of 
Mary  Robinson  (Perdita,  the  actress),  causes  her  to 
break  off  short  at  the  moment  of  her  capitulation  to 
George  IV,  although  she  has  gone  along  swimmingly 
up  to  that  point.  One  reads  her  inability  to  lie  about  it, 
and  her  failure  to  find  an  excuse  for  it,  in  every  broken 
line. 

The  case  of  Perdita,  just  cited,  brings  us  to  the 
obscure  and  difficult  group  of  the  partially  sincere  cases. 
Up  to  this  moment,  we  have  dealt  with  those  master 
examples  over  whom  the  autobiographical  intention 
has  had  a  full  sway,  and  whom  it  has  influenced  to 
a  full  sincerity.  But  there  are,  of  course,  many  self- 
students  in  whom  this  influence  is  defective,  weakened, 
or  counteracted,  and  it  were  not  amiss  to  glance  at 
some  of  the  chief  causes  which  stand  in  the  way  of  its 
normal  operation.  J?here  are  intellectual  causes  and 
emotional  causes  working  against  the  autobiograph- 
ical intention.  Of  the  intellectual,  the  chief  is  the  ob- 
jective cast  of  mind.  This  causes  the  writer  to  be 
particular  about  acts,  dates,  events,  and  other  persons, 
while  he  himself  remains  mistaken  and  obscure.  He 
may  thus  write  a  useful  work  for  history,  which  has  no 
value  for  us  here,  although  it  must  not  be  supposed  that 
this  is  necessarily  the  case.  Saint-Simon  would  seem  to 
contradict  us;  what  he  writes  of  himself  is  true.  But  who 
can  assert  that  Guizot's  memoirs,  or  Lord  Brougham's, 
have  aided  us  to  understand  their  character? 


68  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I  The  chief  cause  for  partial  or  defective  sincerity, 
leading  to  a  lower  value  in  the  finished  work,  is  the 
sentimental  point  of  view.  It  is  most  strikingly  present 
in  the  German  examples,  among  whom  it  would  be  fair 
to  include  Hans  Andersen  and  Holberg.  Sentiment,  the 
sentimental  attitude  toward  what  concerns  oneself, 
/hangs  like  a  hazy  cloud  over  the  narrative,  obscuring 
/facts,  distorting  experience.  This  disfigurement  in- 
jures the  psychological  value  of  Jean  Paul  Richter,  of 
Lavater's  Journal,  of  Kotzebue,  of  Karoline  Bauer, 
and  of  Georg  Ebers,  even  of  the  infinitely  greater  case 
of  Goethe.  The  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung  is  the  weakest 
autobiography  the  world  has  ever  had  from  so  strong 
a  hand.  Enthusiasts  over  it  are  almost  invariably  to 
be  found  among  those  persons  who  think  a  sincere 
self-revelation  pernicious  and  undesirable.  It  has  not 
contributed  in  any  material  degree  to  our  idea  of  the 
writer.  Goethe's  age  at  the  time  it  was  written,  his 
secure  consequence  in  a  world  where  he  saw  no  need 
for  explanation  or  justification,  and,  above  everj^thing, 
his  mental  habit  of  confusing  sentiment  with  fact,  have 
all  helped  to  lower  its  value.  Pages  there  are  of  such 
magnificent  and  penetrating  criticism  as  make  us  feel 
the  deeper  regret  that  this  is  so.  It  is  hard  to  pardon 
George  Sand  for  telling  us  that  she  felt  for  Frederic 
Chopin  ''une  passion  maternelle  tres  vive,  tres  vraie"; 
but  what  can  w^e  reply  to  Goethe,  when  he  asks  us  to 
believe  of  his  early  love-affair  that  ''the  first  propensi- 


THE    DIARY    AND    THE    LETTER  69 

ties  to  love  in  uncorrupted  youth  take  altogether  a 
spiritual  direction"?  George  Sand,  as  a  woman,  is  in 
an  anomalous  position,  and  if  she  omits  the  entire  sub- 
ject of  her  sex-life,  she  amply  atones  by  the  most  minute 
and  thorough  study  of  her  intellectual  and  imaginative 
development.  So  clear,  orderly,  vivid,  and  full  is  she 
on  this  side,  that  every  worker,  and  one  might  almost 
say  every  woman,  must  benefit.  Goethe  would  be 
forgiven  had  he  been  equally  full  respecting  his  mental 
growth.  But  he  only  mentions  that  he  dreamed  of  'Hhe 
laurel  garland  to  adorn  the  poet's  brow." 

Fortunately,  that  extraordinary  figure  was  so  long 
prominent  upon  our  stage,  that  we  have  not  had  to 
depend  upon  the  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung.  If  we  had,  a 
shadowy  and  meditative  youth,  of  low  vitality,  given  to 
platonic  amourettes,  would  have  taken  the  place  of  that 
splendid  embodiment  of  young  manhood.  But  Goethe, 
whose  ability  for  science  and  love  of  it  was  marked, 
let  slip  the  opportunity  to  make  use  of  it  when  he  came 
to  writing  about  himself,  and  so  lost  to  psychology  for- 
ever the  chance  of  gaining  any  classified  and  thorough 
information  as  to  the  mental  processes  of  that  man  who 
has  served  to  show,  above  any  other  modern,  what  man 
may  become. 

The  results  of  the  sentimental  attitude  in  minor  cases 
of  autobiography  are  more  violent,  if  less  important. 
In  Hans  Andersen's  Das  Mdrchen  meines  Lebens,  the 
actual    facts   are   like   morsels   of   quicksilver   in  the 


70  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

hand  —  one  cannot  lay  hold  of  them.  Kotzebue, 
who  imitates  Goethe,  laments  the  death  of  his  wife 
in  terms  of  frenzy.  Ten  years  later,  by  date  on  the 
manuscript,  occurs  his  terrific  agitation  at  being 
separated  a  few  months  from  a  wife,  who,  of  course, 
is  number  two,  but  who  has  not  appeared  before.  In 
Richter's  Truth  from  My  Own  Life,  facts,  reflections, 
feelings,  are  hopelessly  entangled.  To  take  an  English 
book  of  a  similar  type.  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  writing 
definitely  with  the  purpose  of  clearing  his  wife's  good 
name,  becomes  so  sentimentally  rhapsodical  as  to  their 
relations  before  marriage,  that  we  are  quite  as  doubtful 
as  to  the  Lady  Venetia  Stanley's  reputation  as  was 
contemporary  society.  So  fatal  is  this  flaw  that  the  de- 
gree of  its  absence  becomes  almost  a  standard  of  value. 
One  cannot  turn  away  finally  from  the  partially  con- 
structive, partially  candid  autobiographies  without  ob- 
serving those  cases  of  definite  failure  —  not  in  intention 
but  in  execution  —  from  simple  lack  of  writer's  gift. 
Every  now  and  then,  one  happens  on  a  volume  wherein 
the  intention  is  deep  and  expressed,  and  the  subject 
wholly  ignorant  as  to  how  it  must  be  carried  out.  In 
fifty-four  pages  of  introduction.  Dr.  Caldwell  gives  the 
clearest  rules  for  scientific  self-study,  which  he  at  once 
proceeds  to  disregard.  Notwithstanding  all  he  has  said 
about  motives  and  springs  of  action,  he  gives  practically 
no  data,  mentions  few  characteristics,  and  of  childhood 
notes  nothing  but  his  industry.   A  more  modern  book 


THE   DIARY   AND   THE   LETTER  71 

by  John  Beattie  Crozier  is  entitled  Aly  Inner  Life: 
A  Chapter  in  Personal  Evolution.  Here  would  seem  to 
be  the  autobiographical  intention  in  its  most  definite 
form;  yet  the  work  contains  little  but  opinions,  and 
the  description  of  a  background.  One  does  not  hear  if 
the  author  is  tall  or  short,  healthy  or  fragile,  indolent 
or  energetic,  phlegmatic  or  sensitive.  Although  appre- 
ciating the  value  of  autobiography,  the  writer  is  wholly 
unequipped  for  the  task. 

To  the  sentimentalist  and  to  the  plainly  inadequate, 
must  be  added  one  more  example,  though  interesting 
perhaps  to  the  pathologist  only.  The  rogue  and  the 
charlatan  have  been  lately  examined  by  Professor 
Chandler  in  his  Literature  of  Roguery,  where  their 
confessions  receive  due  consideration.  Oddly  enough, 
there  are  to  be  found  valuable  moments  of  frank  self- 
revelation  in  these  documents  —  moments  sometimes 
unknown  to  the  virtuous.  These  single  flashes  of  truth 
and  sincerity  cannot  be  passed  over,  for  they  are  fre- 
quently significant.  The  case  of  George  Psalmanazar  is 
a  typical  illustration.  He  was  an  eighteenth  century 
impostor  who  pretended  to  have  come  from  Formosa,  and 
to  know  the  language  of  that  island,  which,  of  course, 
he  invented.  He  numbered  among  his  victims  the  fore- 
most intellects  of  the  day.  His  memoirs,  reputed  to  be 
the  result  of  his  reUgious  conversion  and  repentance, 
are  fulsome  and  affected,  but  most  striking  when  we 
come  to  his  own  analysis  of  the  imposture.   It  sprang. 


1 


72  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

he  says,  "  from  my  vanity  and  senseless  affectation  of 
singularity,  as  that  was  my  predominant  passion.'* 
The  phrase  is  a  text  to  impress  on  us  that  since  there 
is  a  soul  of  truth  in  all  error,  few  personal  records  can 
be  safely  ignored.  For  Psalmanazar  has  furnished  us 
here  with  the  mot  d'enigme  to  a  certain  type  of  clever 
cheat,  in  all  its  different  manifestations,  from  Caglios- 
tro  and  the  Abbe  de  Choisy  to  the  Sar  Peladan  and 
Oscar  Wilde. 

To  sum  up,  if  one  can  indeed  sum  up  human  nature, 
whence  springs  this  deeply  rooted  desire  to  stand  for 
what  we  are?  Since  we  find  it  unquestionably  present 
in  greater  or  less  measure  through  this  mass  of  records, 
may  we  not  therefore  urge  them  the  more  confidently 
on  the  attention  of  the  psychologist?  An  impulse  to- 
ward the  truth  exists,  it  would  seem,  in  natures  con- 
scious of  no  ethical  reason  for  it.  To  what  is  it  due? 
Is  it,  as  Marcus  Aurelius  believes,  "  man's  reverence 
for  the  ruling  faculty,  the  divinity  within  him"?  Or 
is  it  an  aesthetic  impulse  based  on  the  artist's  desire 
for  perfection?  Perchance  to  Cellini  the  writer,  the 
figure  of  himself  stood  forth  to  be  wrought  with  the 
same  minute  perfection  he  would  accord  to  a  king's 
chalice  or  a  pope's  button.  And  so  nothing  is  omitted; 
hidden  things  are  dragged  forth,  that  the  work  may  bo 
complete.  Who  shall  decide  what  has  caused  to  speak 
truthfully  such  various  tongues  of  men?  Not  we  in  this 
place;  we  can  do  no  more  than  point  out  the  existence 


THE   DIARY   AND   THE   LETTER  73 

of  this  vein  of  gold  running  through  the  dross. 
Point  to  it  we  must  before  we  leave  broad  generalities 
and  come  to  persons  and  to  personalities.  So  we  direct 
attention  to  the  fact,  somewhat  in  the  same  manner 
as  Lord  Brougham  prefaced  his  autobiography  with  a 
note  to  his  executors,  the  capitals  of  which  are  his 
own:  ''The  narrative  is  to  be  printed  AS  I  HAVE 
WRITTEN  IT.  ...  I  alone  am  answerable.  ...  I 
desire  .  .  .  [it]  ....  shall  be  published  as  exclusively 
MY  OWN." 

Ego  sum.  Here  it  is,  the  "  I  am  "  of  humanity:  first, 
and  perhaps  last,  word  in  the  book  which  has  never  been 
completed.  If  some  pages  of  it  have  been  opened  to  the 
reader  he  should  be  content.  He  must  not  ask  us  yet 
for  definitely  crystallized  conclusions.  Ours  has  been 
merely  the  long  ramble  of  two  intimates  over  a  new 
country.  We  have  gone  out  together  for  the  sake  of 
the  walk  and  of  the  friends  whom  we  should  meet  by 
the  way. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  THREE  GREAT  ARCHETYPES 

If  Rousseau  had  been  right  when  he  declared,  *'Je 
forme  une  entreprise  qui  n'eut  jamais  d'exemple," 
we  should  have  felt  no  such  security  regarding  the 
ground  we  tread  as  now  forms  our  basis  for  the  general 
and  particular  study  of  sincerity.  But  the  Confes- 
sions served  merely  to  give  a  powerful  impetus  and 
re-animation  to  a  movement  started  centuries  before  the 
days  of  Jean  Jacques.  Three  masters  have  successively 
contributed  to  this  movement:  these  were  Caesar, 
Augustin,  and  Cardan.  Our  historical  survey  leads  us 
directly  to  these  three  names  as  the  predominant  influ- 
ences upon  all  later  manifestations  of  autobiographical 
writing. 

It  seems  plain  to  us  to-day  that  Caesar's  Commen- 
taries are  not  autobiographical,  yet  they  have  inspired 
later  autobiography  to  an  extent  almost  incalculable. 
To  what  degree  they  themselves  are  inspired  by  those 
non-extant  commentaries  of  Sulla  we  cannot  estimate. 
But  the  influence  of  Caesar  is  traceable  and  direct.  *'  Ce 
grand  capitaine,  qui  est  Cesar,"  says  Monluc,  ''  m'en 
monstre  le  chemin'';  and  he  stands  as  but  one  of 
hundreds  to  whom  the  Roman  has  shown  the  road. 
It  is  hard  to  find  a  single  objective  historical  record  for 


THE  THREE  GREAT  ARCHETYPES    75 

eight  hundred  years  which  does  not  avow  that  its  inspi- 
ration came  from  Caesar's  Commentaries.  Their  con- 
ciseness, their  balance  and  directness,  major  qualities 
of  an  historian,  appear  to  have  been  the  model  for 
these  later  private  historians.  This  recognized  fact  is 
aptly  expressed  in  a  paragraph  quoted  by  Boswell  * 
from  the  observations  of  the  Critical  Reviewers:  — 

"  We  may  reduce  the  egotists  to  four  classes.  In 
the  first  we  have  Julius  Cssar;  he  relates  his  own 
transactions,  but  he  relates  them  with  peculiar  grace 
and  dignity,  and  his  narrative  is  supported  by  the 
greatness  of  his  character  and  achievements.  In  the 
second  class  we  have  Marcus  Antoninus;  this  writer 
has  given  us  a  series  of  reflections  on  his  own  life;  but 
his  sentiments  are  so  noble,  his  morality  so  sublime,  that 
his  meditations  are  universally  admired.  In  the  third 
class  we  have  some  others  of  tolerable  credit,  who  have 
given  importance  to  their  own  private  history  by  an 
intermixture  of  literary  anecdotes  and  the  occurrences  of 
their  own  times  —  the  celebrated  Huetius  has  published 
an  entertaining  volume  upon  this  plan.  In  the  fourth 
class  we  have  the  journalists,  temporal  and  spiritual; 
Elias  Ashmole,  WiUiam  Lilly,  George  Whitefield,  Wesley, 
and  a  thousand  other  old  women  and  fanatic  writers  of 
memoirs  and  meditations." 

It  is  interesting  here  to  see  that  the  writer  of  the 
paragraph  has  formed  an  idea  of  classifying  this  spe- 
'  Boswell  (Hill),  HI,  p.  195  (on  Dr.  Rutty). 


76  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

cies  of  document,  however  different  this  classification 
would  be  from  our  own.  The  ^*  but  "  apologizing  for 
Caesar  and  Marcus  Aurelius  is  significant  of  the  dis- 
credit passed  upon  the  whole  matter,  which  is  further 
shown  by  the  "  universal  admiration"  which  he  thinks 
justifies  the  latter.  And  lastly  we  see  the  more  sub- 
jective personal  documents  classed  with  the  old  women 
and  fanatics.  We  feel  otherwise  toward  the  '^  journalists, 
temporal  and  spiritual,"  to-day;  but  the  preeminence 
of  Caesar,  his  grace  and  dignity,  his  "  greatness  of  char- 
acter and  achievements,"  make  him  still  the  model. 
He  stands  at  the  head,  he  remains  the  type. 

In  his  turn,  the  influence  of  Augustin  is  no  less  marked, 
no  less  enduring.  Moreover,  the  vital  freshness,  the  orig- 
inality of  Augustin  constitute  a  force  in  themselves. 
To  analyze,  to  study  one's  self  for  the  glory  of  God,  the 
humiliation  of  one's  own  sin,  and  the  aid  of  other  poor 
stumbling  creatures,  — this  is  Augustin's  great  thought; 
so  far  as  we  can  trace  it,  it  belongs  wholly  to  him.  It 
is  gloriously  full  and  perfect;  it  strikes  a  note  at  once 
intimate  and  uplifting  —  that  "  he  who  humbleth  him- 
self shall  be  exalted."  The  vigor,  the  poignant  strength 
of  this  conception,  helped  to  restore  self-respect  to 
those  natures  whom  the  early  Christian  tenets  had 
depressed  and  debased  until  they  were  both  passive 
and  useless.  Augustin  realized  that  the  doctrine  of 
original  sin  tended  in  certain  temperaments  to  eat 
away  like  some  corrosive  acid  the  very  springs  of  action, 


THE  THREE  GREAT  ARCHETYPES    77 

thus  killing  manhood  and  strength  and  leaving  only  a 
lax  inertia.  By  turning  the  eye  inward  to  examine 
with  reverent  study  the  creature  that  he  really  was, 
Augustin  thought  to  freshen  and  revive  the  activities 
of  the  religious  man.  He  was  beyond  measure  success- 
ful. On  the  sensitive,  emotionally  religious  person  the 
fascination  of  Augustin's  Confessions  is  hypnotic.  It 
may  be  seen  at  work  in  Teresa,  in  Robert  Blair,  in  Gui- 
bert  de  Nogent,  in  Bishop  Huet  of  Avranches,  and  in 
Jeanne  de  la  Mothe-Guyon.  Just  as  we  may  trace  the 
influence  of  Csesar  on  the  memoir  so-called,  so  has 
the  religious  confession  been  influenced  by  Augustin. 

And  from  exactly  opposite  causes.  The  reticent 
brevity  of  the  commander  is  antagonistic  to  the  Bishop 
of  Hippo.  His  very  strength  lies  in  his  fullness;  it  is 
the  same  later  on  mth  Rousseau.  Health  and  help 
lie  for  some  natures  in  complete  avowal,  in  seeing  all 
our  torment  and  trouble,  ''the  invincible  remnants  of 
the  brute,  the  agonizing  struggle  with  temptation," 
through  the  medium  of  another's  mind  and  character. 
We  are  dragged  out  of  our  singularity,  we  are  measured 
up  to  greatness;  a  strong  hand  holds  us.  Augustin's 
vitality  is  high;  and  he  was  not  born  with  any  more 
delicate  sense  of  values,  of  justice,  of  proportion,  than 
the  rest  of  us.  He  is  humanly  tormented,  humanly 
released.  He  has  the  common  moral  inconsistencies; 
he  classes  the  sins  of  stealing  and  concupiscence  along 
with  the  Manichaean  heresy.  Later  biographers  take  him 


78  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to  task  for  exaggeration  as  to  his  faults.  Father  Joseph 
McCabe  stigmatizes  the  ethics  of  the  Confessions  as 
"  utterly  false/'  because  in  the  light  of  his  conver- 
sion Augustin  ''  is  sternly  bent  on  magnifying  his  mis- 
deeds." In  our  opinion,  this  biographer  seems  to 
forget  that  Augustin  is  writing  to  aid  others  from  the 
standard  of  the  ideal  moralist,  and  that,  from  this 
view-point,  stealing  and  concupiscence  were  not,  after 
all,  such  trifling  errors.  The  early  life  led  by  Augustin 
would  be  condemned  by  the  community  to-day;  why 
then  is  he  exaggerating  when  he  condemns  it?  There 
are  those  to  whom  an  utter  and  fundamental  sincerity 
appears  as  indecent;  their  candor  must  be  always 
clothed.  To  others,  naked  sincerity  has  a  nobility  and 
beauty  like  the  naked  body.  M.  Gaston  Boissier  com- 
ments on  this  quality  of  the  Confessions,  declaring  that 
he  knows  no  work  possessing  it  to  the  same  degree.^ 
*'  II  a  voulu  etre  vrai,  et  pour  I'essentiel  il  I'a  ete." 
Life  ran  generously  through  Augustin's  veins.  He  takes 
first  one  side  of  himself,  then  the  other  to  show  us.  As 
a  boy  he  disliked  study  and  preferred  to  play  ball.  "  So 
small  a  boy,  so  great  a  sinner!  .  .  .  Deceiving  with 
innumerable  lies  both  tutor  and  masters  and  parents, 
from  love  of  play,  a  desire  to  see  frivolous  spectacles, 
and  a  stage-struck  restlessness."  ^  But  he  allows:  "I 
lived  and  felt,  I  learned  to  take  pleasure  in  truth, 

1  "La  Fin  du  Paganisme,"  I,  pp.  340-342. 
'  "Confessions,"  I,  18. 


THE  THREE  GREAT  ARCHETYPES    79 

I  was  averse  to  being  deceived;  I  had  a  vigorous 
memory." 

It  is  in  these  balancing  statements  that  we  see  self- 
study,  that  we  note  the  first  great  self-student.  Able 
autobiography  may  contain  much  self-revelation,  which 
is  not  self-study.  Cellini  is  no  self-student,  nor  Goldoni, 
nor  Madame  de  Staal-Delaunay.  The  psychological 
value  of  their  work  is  not  thereby  impaired;  but  their 
influence,  their  authority,  is  limited  because  of  the 
unconscious  character  of  their  self-revelation.  In  this, 
as  in  other  studies,  one  must  feel  that  authority  and 
influence  belong  rather  to  the  deliberate,  conscious, 
coherent  observation,  than  to  the  spontaneous,  uncon- 
scious manifestation  of  natural  proclivities.  Augustin, 
Cardan,  and  later  Rousseau  and  Mill,  —  these  are  the 
autobiographers  who  have  influenced  others,  and  these 
are  the  great  self-students. 

Such  a  work  must  have  a  value  beyond  any  question 
of  religion,  above  even  its  mere  devotional  beauty.  Too 
often  has  this  latter  quality  in  Augustin  been  made  the 
subject  of  cult;  too  often  is  he  treated  as  a  penitential 
handbook,  as  an  a  Kempis  with  the  self-study  left  out.^ 

If  we  believe  with  Taine,  ''The  more  a  book  repre- 
sents important  sentiments,  the  higher  is  its  place  in 
literature,"  we  see  where  one  should  rank  the  authori- 
tative self-student.  Taine,  indeed,  renders  the  whole 
subject  more  lucid  in  some  further  sentences  of  his 
^  References  here  are  to  the  full,  patristic  edition. 


80  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Introduction  to  the  History  of  English  Literature, 
sentences  invaluable  for  the  crystallization  of  one's 
thought.  ''A  literary  work,"  he  says,  '4s  not  a  mere 
individual  play  of  imagination  .  .  .  but  a  transcript 
of  contemporary  manners,  a  manifestation  of  a  certain 
kind  of  mind.  .  .  .  Behind  the  document  there  is  a 
man."  Here  should  be,  unquestionably,  our  view  of 
the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  as  of  the  later  cases  we  know  him 
to  have  inspired.  Looking  upon  each  autobiography, 
first,  sociologically,  as  * '  a  transcript  of  contemporary 
manners,"  second,  psychologically,  as  ''the  manifesta- 
tion of  a  certain  kind  of  mind,"  we  find  the  great  self- 
student  himself  appreciating  the  fact  that,  as  Taine 
says,  "  the  outer  man  is  only  a  clew,"  and  so  spending 
his  energy  in  "visualizing  the  inner  man." 

Of  many  natures  is  this  inner  man.  When  Augustin 
wrote  of  his  sin:  "It  was  foul;  I  loved  it;  I  loved  to 
perish,"  there  seemed  only  one  motive  in  the  world  for 
making  such  an  avowal, — religion, — and  only  one  force 
in  a  man's  life  which  could  produce  this  naked  candor, — 
the  force  of  religious  emotion.  But  when  we  turn  to  our 
great  self-student,  Jerome  Cardan,  we  find  a  new  force 
at  work  to  produce  it,  a  force  which  was  neither  the 
recording  historical  impulse,  nor  the  emotional  reli- 
gious impulse,  but  the  impulse  we  now  call  scientific. 
A  great  space  of  time  had  passed  between  the  Confes- 
sions in  430  A.D.,  and  the  De  Vita  Propria  Liber  in  1575. 
The  antique  world  had  crumbled  away,  the  Renaissance 


THE   THREE   GREAT   ARCHETYPES  81 

had  risen;  what  we  call  the  modern  era  had  been 
born.  During  these  eleven  hundred  and  forty-five 
years,  while  the  religious  confession  from  Augustin 
to  Paulinus  of  Pella,  to  Suso,  to  Guibert,  and  so 
following,  had  been  abundant;  while  the  historical 
memoir,  following  Caesar  and  Josephus,  had  come  to 
establish  itself  firmly  as  a  literary  fashion;  yet  there 
is  absolutely  no  trace  of  scientific  self-study.  This  fact 
helps  one  to  realize  what  a  wholly  fresh  idea  came  to 
the  Italian  physician  when  he  set  to  work  examining 
himself  '  ^  as  if  he  were  a  new  species  of  animal  which  he 
never  expected  to  see  again."  ^ 

Unquestionably  the  scientific  self-examination  is  as 
modern  in  thought  as  it  is  rare  in  practice.  For  in- 
stance, the  Critical  Reviewer  does  not  mention  it  among 
his  ''four  classes  of  egotists."  A  certain  temperament 
only  is  moved  to  it,  and  only  under  certain  conditions. 
Yet  the  names  of  the  followers  of  Cardan  are  among 
the  great  leaders  of  thought.  He  who  writes  ' '  a  natural 
history  of  himself,"  in  Herbert  Spencer's  phrase,  is  he 
who  knows  that  self  to  be  worth  observation.  The 
entire  group  of  modern  English  scientists  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  write  their  lives  in  the  scientific  or 
Cardan  manner.  Earlier  autobiographies  of  the  Cardan 
type  are  those  of  Alfieri,  Vico,  and  Edward  Gibbon, 
of  George  Sand,  David  Hume,  and  Rousseau. 

The  names  of  Caesar  and  Augustin  are  familiar;  they 
*  "  Retrospective  Review." 


82  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

stand  to  the  general  reader  for  definite  values  and  for 
clear  ideas.  When  Jerome  Cardan  comes  under  con- 
sideration there  is  no  such  clear  idea.  In  his  own  field 
a  great  man,  a  great  influence,  he  hardly  belongs  to 
general  literature;  his  work  has  rather  baen  embodied 
in  the  advance  of  the  sciences  he  professed.  The  tech- 
nical character  of  his  mathematical  achievements  has 
caused  them  to  become  at  once  incorporated  into 
the  bulk  of  existing  thought.  His  Book  of  His  Own 
Life,  written  under  certain  conditions,  as  we  shall 
understand  later,  was  as  much  reprobated  as  the  Con- 
fessions of  Rousseau,  as  much  read  and  as  much 
imitated.  It  stands  in  the  pages  of  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  century  learning,  mentioned  by  such  men 
as  Huet,  Burton,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  as  among  the 
great  intellectual  influences  of  their  lives.  Yet  for 
reasons  which  no  longer  obtain,  it  has  not  been 
translated  into  English,  and  is  not  readily  access- 
ible in  its  French  and  Italian  versions  to  the  general 
reader. 

It  is  not  only  for  this  reason  that  it  has  been  dealt 
with  in  these  pages  at  greater  length  than  any  other 
case,  but,  because  this,  our  third  great  type  of  auto- 
biographer,  is  purely  modern.  He  is  among  the  first 
manifestations  of  what  we  term  the  scientific  spirit; 
he  is  in  the  forefront  of  that  new  order  which  was 
to  change  the  face  of  the  universe.  His  influence  on 
later  minds  and  writings  is  a  scientific  influence.    A 


THE  THREE  GREAT  ARCHETYPES    83 

second  reason  for  analyzing  the  De  Vita  Pro'pria  LibeVf 
with  its  pendant  De  Libris  Propriis,  is  the  character 
of  the  document  itself.  Its  information,  its  attitude, 
and  its  logic  have  been  misread,  misinterpreted,  mis- 
understood for  four  hundred  years.  As  a  study  it  is 
so  far  in  advance  of  its  time,  that  even  one  hundred 
years  ago  much  of  the  matter  would  have  been  incom- 
prehensible. Here  is  a  scientist  deeply  interested  in  the 
brain  and  the  nervous  system,  and  their  relation  to 
the  physical  and  intellectual  life,  and  at  a  date  when 
the  existence  of  such  a  relation  was  by  no  means  clearly 
established.  His  own  brain  and  nervous  system  pre- 
sented a  series  of  the  most  complicated  problems  be- 
fore which  he  sits  in  clinic.  If  his  deductions  seem 
wild  to  us,  let  us  not  forget  how  absurd  were  his  pre- 
mises. The  fact  remains  that  here,  in  1575,  sits  the 
first  psychologist,  minutely  examining  the  only  case  at 
hand, —  a  case  which,  fortunately  for  us,  presents  the 
most  salient,  individual,  and  often  abnormal  features. 
It  is  not  only  that  a  scientist  of  the  first  order  is  ex- 
amining this  brain;  but  that  the  brain  itself  is  of  the  first 
order,  presenting  those  definite  characteristics  and  that 
high  quality  which  make  its  examination  important. 
A  Ribot  studying  the  mental  growth  of  an  Aristotle  — 
for  Cardan  was  said  to  have  had  the  greatest  brain 
since  Aristotle  —  is  a  combination  rare  enough,  in  all 
conscience.  Of  perfect  originality,  this  book  contains 
psychological  data  which  have  awaited  the  birth  and 


84  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

development  of  a  special  branch  of  science  for  their 
elucidation. 

To  his  contemporaries,  to  many  biographers,  the 
man  seems  plainly  mad.  Hallam/  the  conservative 
historian  of  the  hterature  of  Europe,  thinks  that  "  no 
man  can  read  this  strange  book  of  his  own  life  .  .  . 
without  suspecting  a  portion  of  insanity."  Mr.  W.  G. 
Waters,  writing  in  1882,  thinks  Cardan  was  subject  to 
periodical  insanity,  basing  this  idea  on  his  "  recorded 
belief  in  a  gift  of  tongues."  Tiraboschi  considers  the 
form  of  writing,  rather  than  the  material,  indicative  of 
unbalanced  faculties,  following  in  this  the  Scaligers, 
Bayle,  and  Naude.  Mr.  Henry  Morley,  Cardan's 
fullest  English  biographer,  dissents  from  this  opinion; 
and  a  final  verdict  must  be  left  to  the  reader.  There 
is  matter  the  reader  must,  however,  bear  in  mind:  the 
fact  that  his  point  of  view  has  been  determined  only  in 
the  last  fifty  years.  When  we  come  to  the  statisticians 
who  paved  the  way  for  mental  physiology,  we  find 
M.  Quetelet  ^  declaring  that  infinite  aid  would  be  given 
to  the  study  of  man  if  only  one  would  "  s'examiner  lui- 
meme  avec  soin,  pour  determiner  les  elements  qui  le  con- 
cernent,  et  ses  limites."  This  is  what  Cardan  did;  this 
his  contemporaries  thought  him  mad  for  attempting. 
Mad  or  impious  have  ever  been  the  favorite  adjectives 
applied  to  the  pioneer.   And  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 

1  "  Literature  of  Europe,"  Vol.  I,  p.  394. 

2  "  Sur  r  Homme,"  pp.  268,  269. 


THE  THREE  GREAT  ARCHETYPES    85 

that  by  reason  of  his  mvention  of  the  principle  of 
gathering  and  collating  personal  data,  Jerome  Cardan 
stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the  new  psychology  as 
Galileo  to  astronomy. 

These  three  great  types  of  autobiographer  must  be 
introduced  before  one  can  consider  their  followers  and 
imitators,  for  they  serve,  indeed,  to  explain  their  fol- 
lowers. It  has  already  been  stated  that  the  two  of 
them  whose  work  was  introspective  were  sincere.  No 
enemy,  even,  has  called  that  general  sincerity  in  ques- 
tion; and  this  fact  has  had  the  strongest  possible  in- 
fluence in  making  for  sincerity  among  their  imitators. 
Augustine's  motive  for  sincerity  we  know  to  have  been 
the  powerful  motive  of  religious  emotion.  That  the 
scientific  motive  for  Jerome  Cardan's  sincerity  pro- 
duced equally  striking  results,  remains  to  be  shown 
by  an  examination  of  his  work. 


CHAPTER  VII 

JEROME   CARDAN'S  "DE   VITA  PROPRIA   LIBER" 

Comparison  of  Jerome  Cardan  with  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau  has  a  value  beyond  that  of  its  obvious 
picturesqueness.  Like  elements  of  character  and  cir- 
cumstance in  like  combinations  may  produce  like  re- 
sults. Both  men  were  born  in  poverty,  were  struggling, 
irascible,  hypersensitive,  and  at  war  with  convention. 
Both  were  moody,  excitable,  neurotic,  frail  of  physique, 
and  full  of  infirmities.  Both  were  devoted  to  music, 
given  to  sensual  pleasures,  absorbed  and  absent  in 
manner,  and  noted  for  minor  eccentricities.  The  in- 
tellectual powers  of  the  Italian  far  exceeded  those  of 
the  Frenchman,  nor  was  there  the  same  inconsistency 
between  his  philosophy  and  his  actions  as  existed  be- 
tween the  sentiment  and  the  actions  of  Rousseau.  The 
reader  of  the  Vita  need  be  in  no  such  haze  regard- 
ing concrete  details  as  the  reader  of  the  Confessions  ; 
yet,  again  Hke  Rousseau,  Cardan,  in  the  phrase  of 
Tiraboschi,^  approaches  philosophy  wishing  no  other 
guide  than  his  imagination.  To  Rousseau  was  given 
the  advantage  of  literary  quality,  and  that  noble  in- 
strument of  style  which  must  count  in  the  last  analysis 

^  Tiraboschi,  T.  VII,  pt.  I,  p.  417,  "E  non  vuol  altra  guida  che 
la  sua  immaginazione." 


THE   "DE   VITA    PROPRIA   LIBER"  87 

to  make  an  enduring  mark  upon  the  minds  of  men. 
Cardan,  regardless  of  the  medium  in  which  Dante  had 
not  disdained  to  cast  the  Divina  Commedia,  chose  to 
commit  the  record  of  his  self-study  to  an  arid,  if  not 
inelegant,  Latin  prose,  at  once  unpleasing  and  obscure. 
To  the  peculiar  difficulties  it  offers  the  translator  we 
shall  recur  erelong.  The  obscurity  has  been  increased 
for  his  readers  by  apparent  contradictions  —  apparent 
only,  as  will  be  seen  later  —  and  by  his  commentators' 
dangerous  habit  of  isolating  single  statements  from 
the  text. 

It  is  this  habit,  at  moments  amounting  to  falsifica- 
tion, which  causes  such  studies  of  Cardan  as  Lom- 
broso's  ^  and  Lelut's  ^  to  perpetuate  lasting  injustice. 
Both  of  these  works  are  based  on  certain  isolated, 
single  statements  given  without  Cardan's  explanations; 
and  both  of  them  dispose  of  him  as  a  hallucine,  without 
taking  the  trouble  to  read  with  an  open  mind  the  whole 
book  of  his  life.  In  both  cases,  also,  simple  natural 
explanations  have  been  rejected  for  the  sounding  brass 
and  tinkling  cymbals  of  a  favorite  theory.  Such  methods 
are  unworthy  of  modern  science.  Tiraboschi,  in  1821, 
might  declare  it  impossible  to  reconcile  the  different 
qualities  of  a  disposition  so  contradictory  as  Cardan's, — 
that  a  man  cannot  in  the  same  breath  deplore  his  own 
gross  vices  and  laud  his  elevated  virtues,  cannot  be 

^  "La  Pazzia  di  Cardano." 
'  "Le  Demon  de  Socrate." 


88  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

at  once  scientifically  skeptical  and  temperamentally 
credulous.  Yet  to  this  generation  with  its  wider  know- 
ledge of  the  far-reaching  and  subtle  reactions  of  the 
nervous  system,  and  its  greater  interest  in  abnormal 
individual  cases,  many  of  these  so-called  contradictions 
have  ceased  to  contradict,  but  become  on  closer  study 
the  component  parts  of  a  markedly  typical  whole.  The 
value,  if  not  the  necessity,  of  a  study  of  the  De  Vita 
Propria  in  this  connection  has  been  pointed  out  by 
Ribot^  in  these  words:  "  II  y  aurait  une  curieuse  6tude 
h,  faire  d'apres  le  De  Vita  Propria  de  Cardan,  qui  etait 
manifestement  ce  qu'on  appelle  de  nos  jours  un  nevro- 
pathe  et  un  des^quilibre." 

M.  Joseph  Grasset  in  his  book  on  the  Demi-fou 
repeats  and  emphasizes  this  comment;  and  it  will  be 
seen  later  what  generalizations  of  the  psychologist 
may  receive  suggestion  or  illumination  from  the  data 
scrupulously  collected  by  the  Italian  physician. 

When  we  realize  the  fame  and  position  of  Cardan 
in  his  own  day,  the  oblivion  into  which  his  work  has 
fallen  may  give  us  pause,  and  serve  to  throw  some 
light,  perchance,  on  the  elements  of  an  enduring  glory. 
Mr.  Waters,  one  of  his  later  biographers,  thinks  that 
Cardan's  blind  following  of  Galen,  together  with  his 
unsound  methods  of  diagnosis,  is  chiefly  responsible 
for  the  neglect  of  his  medical  writings.  Had  he  kept 
closer  to  the  school  of  Hippocrates,  in  this  opinion, 
*  "  Psychologie  des  Sentiments,"  p.  64,  note. 


THE    "DE    VITA   PROPRL\   LIBER"  89 

the  world  of  medicine  would  have  owed  him  much. 
To  Tiraboschi  and  Morley,  the  reason  lies  in  the  diffusion 
of  his  powers  and  his  avidity  for  mere  novelty.  Of  his 
mass  of  work,  ethical,  medical,  philosophical,  astro- 
logical, there  remain  only  his  algebraic  discoveries 
and  the  present  volume,  which  has  for  centuries  suf- 
fered from  misinterpretation.  Personal  reasons  for  this 
are  not  lacking.  The  definitive  edition  of  Cardani 
Opera  (C.  Spon,  1663)  is  prefixed  with  a  study  of 
Cardan  by  Gabriel  Naud^,  who  saw  in  him  nothing 
but  a  madman.  Toward  the  end  of  Cardan's  life  his 
enemies  were  particularly  active;  and  nothing  therefore 
appeared  to  dissipate  the  tradition  of  the  man  as  estab- 
lished by  Naude  and  De  Thou. 

In  1854  appeared  Mr.  Henry  Morley's  most  accurate 
and  readable  biography,  entitled  The  Life  of  Girolamo 
Cardano,  of  Milan,  Physician,  wherein  the  author, 
with  enthusiasm  and  out  of  a  wealth  of  material,  has 
built  up  a  study  of  sixteenth  century  Italian  life,  full 
and  fascinating  as  a  romance.  For  interest,  color,  and 
picturesqueness,  the  general  reader  need  seek  no  further. 
But  Mr.  Morley's  own  attitude  toward  Cardan's  self- 
dissection  is  displayed  when  he  terms  it  "  the  prattle 
of  literature  in  its  infancy."  The  word  ''infantile"  as 
applied  to  Italian  literature  of  the  sixteenth  century 
strikes  the  modern  ear  as  singularly  infelicitous,  but  it  is 
typical  of  the  general  opinion  concerning  the  introspec- 
tive tendency.   Although  Mr.  Morley  makes  free  use  of 


90  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the  Vita,  he  does  so,  intermingling  translation,  adap- 
tation, comment,  and  corrective,  in  a  manner  unsatis- 
factory to  the  serious  student.  It  seems  wiser  for  our 
present  purpose,  therefore,  to  go  directly  to  the  De 
Vita  Propria  Liber  itself;  to  take  this  extraordinary 
document  at  its  face  value;  to  examine  it,  discarding 
comment  and  tradition;  and  to  try  to  discover  from 
its  pages  what  the  man  who  wrote  it  really  was.^ 


II 

*'  Since  among  all  the  things  mankind  has  been  given 
to  follow,  there  is  none  more  worthy  or  pleasing  than  a 
knowledge  of  the  truth;  nor  is  any  perfection  possible 
among  the  work  of  mortals  but  it  is  greatly  the  butt  of 
calumny;  —  therefore,  after  the  example  of  the  philoso- 
pher Antoninus,  as  is  believed  wisest  and  best  of  men, 
we  see  fit  to  write  this  book  of  our  own  life.  I  assever- 
ate that  nothing  has  been  added  for  the  sake  of  boasting, 
or  for  embellishing  the  matter.  Bare  therefore  of  any 
artifice,  and  far  from  arrogating  to  itself  any  power  to 
teach,  my  book  concerns  itself  with  a  bald  narration  of 

^  The  oblivion  in  which  Cardan  rests  is  best  set  forth  by  the 
statement  that  his  name  barely  occurs  in  the  Italian  Literatures 
by  the  Italians  Ancona,  Bartoli,  Settembrini,  and  Cantu ;  in  sim- 
ilar English  studies  by  J.  A.  Symonds  and  Richard  Gamett;  and 
in  French  books  by  Leroux  and  others.  He  has,  however,  been 
recently  made  the  subject  of  Italian  study.  The  one  by  C. 
Lombroso  is   wholly  theoretical  and  a  priori. 


THE    "DE   VITA    PROPRIA   LIBER"  91 

facts,  and  only  comprises  my  own  life,  and  not  tumults 
like  the  lives  of  Sulla,  Caesar,  or  even  Augustus." 

In  this  paragraph  the  elements  and  proportions  of 
self-study  are  well  defined  and  understood.  At  once  it 
furnishes  the  reader  with  a  warrant  of  serious  intention, 
and  by  its  dignified  sequence  of  causes,  the  love  of  truth, 
the  personal  example  of  Antoninus,  and  the  final  exposi- 
tion of  a  perfectly  subjective  method,  permits  him  to 
pass  confidently  to  an  examination  of  the  facts.  These 
are  grouped  into  chapters  classified  under  separate  heads 
with  such  titles  as  Be  Statura  et  Forma  Corporis; 
De  Valetudine;  Victus  Ratio;  Vestitus;  Delectatio ; 
Mores  et  Animi  Vitia,  et  Errores;  in  such  form,  as  Mr. 
Waters  puts  it,  "  as  a  scientific  writer  would  arrange 
the  sections  and  subsections  of  his  subject."  Such 
an  arrangement  is  not  common  to-day;  and  for  the 
sixteenth  century  was  unique.  The  promise  of  candor 
which  it  implied,  and  indeed  fulfilled,  was  a  quality 
unheard  of.  Its  mere  existence  bewildered  the  contem- 
porary reader,  causing  him  to  suspect  some  ulterior 
motive.  In  the  Histoire  Universelle,  De  Thou  remarks 
that  Cardan  told  much  more  of  himself  than  any  bio- 
grapher could  have  told,  or  than  is  usual  among  literary 
men.  To  quote  from  an  anonymous  writer  in  the  Retro- 
spective Review:  ''He  takes  the  height,  breadth,  and 
marks  of  his  person,  as  a  curious  traveler  would  mea- 
sure the  pyramids.  A  naturalist  would  thus  describe 
an  animal  he  had  never  before  met  with,  and  never 


92  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

expected  to  see  again.  He  writes  as  if  he  were  giving 
evidence  in  a  court  of  justice,  and  every  sentence  was 
an  answer  to  a  question  put  to  him  .  .  .  under  the 
influence  of  an  imperious  sense  of  duty." 

Even  to-day,  the  intensity  of  sincerity  which  moves 
through  the  pages  of  this  book  strangely  affects  us. 
The  writer  seems  to  stand  before  Dante's  grinning 
Minos,  '*  che,  quando  I'anima  mal  nata  li  vien  dinanzi, 
tutta  si  confessa";  and  so  exact  the  image  that  one 
seems  to  read  in  this  canto  of  the  Inferno  the  inspira- 
tion to  Cardan's  vivid  and  somewhat  morbid  imagi- 
nation. However  this  may  be,  even  an  outcry  like 
Naude's  does  not  stand  before  such  an  "imperious  sense 
of  duty"  with  any  valid  or  proven  contradictions,  but 
calls  attention  only  to  that  mass  of  superstition  by 
which  we  shall  find  Cardan  surrounded.  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  there  is  placed  before  posterity  in  a  method- 
ical manner  the  complete  evidence  about  an  extraor- 
dinary person,  whose  temperament,  misfortunes,  and 
errors  bring  him  very  near  the  heart  of  ordinary 
humanity. 

*'  Introspective  observation,"  says  Professor  William 
James,*  writing  of  individual  psychology,  "  is  what 
we  have  to  rely  on,  first  and  foremost.  The  word 
introspective  need  hardly  be  defined;  it  means,  of 
course,  the  looking  into  our  own  minds  and  reporting 

*  W.  James,  "Textbook  of  Advanced  Principles  of  Psychol- 
ogy," I,  p.  185. 


THE    "DE   VITA    PROPRIA   LIBER"  93 

what  we  there  discover.  Every  one  agrees  that  we 
there  discover  states  of  consciousness. '^  Upon  reading 
such  a  sentence  one  is  a-lmost  tempted  to  believe  that 
the  daemon,  that  tutelary  genius  of  Cardan,  when  it 
rapt  him  away  into  ecstasies  of  meditation,  opened  to 
him  a  glimpse  of  the  future,  by  way  of  a  modern  psy- 
chology. It  is  almost  as  if  his  Minos  were  Professor 
James  or  Professor  Miinsterberg  in  person.  His  report  of 
his  states  of  consciousness  is  as  complete  as,  humanly 
speaking,  it  is  possible  to  be.  With  all  a  great  physician's 
attention  to  minutiae,  he  omits  no  trifling  detail  as  to 
food,  clothing,  feelings,  habits,  and  the  changes  wrought 
in  them  by  time.  To  Mr.  Morley  this  appears  but  as 
curious  and  amusing,  to  Naude  as  evidence  of  egotism 
and  eccentricity,  but  to  us  it  bears  witness  to  the 
thoroughness  of  a  scientific  method.  Such  thoroughness 
naturally  induces  repetition,  which  is  encouraged  also 
by  the  writer's  age  when  the  book  was  written.  At 
seventy-five  years,  and  after  a  life  of  internal  and  exter- 
nal vicissitude,  a  certain  wandering  about  among  the 
various  topics  is  observable,  and  this  is  made  the  most  of 
by  such  commentators  as  Naude,  Bayle,  Lelut,  and  Lom- 
broso.  In  the  same  manner,  the  emphasis  Cardan  laid 
upon  the  supernatural  elements  in  his  career,  an  empha- 
sis which  is  heightened  to  account  for  an  otherwise 
unendurable  grievance  against  life,  is  responsible  for 
the  exaggerated  impression  of  his  personality,  its  char- 
latanry, its  apparent  madness.   Isolated  from  the  body 


94  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  the  text,  the  incidents,  dreams,  omens,  and  so  on,  do 
seem  to  take  the  stamp  of  an  unbalanced  mind.  Read 
in  their  proper  place,  with  the  surrounding  commentary, 
it  will  be  found  that  Cardan  rarely  denies  us  the  natural 
explanation  of  an  event.  It  may  have  been  an  earth- 
quake, and  not  an  omen,  which  caused  his  bed  to 
shake  ;  it  may  have  been  the  drugs  which  cured  him 
of  a  gouty  attack  and  not  the  prayer  to  San  Martino  — 
and  so  on.  In  brief,  this  is  a  conscientious  man  of 
science,  who  compels  himself  to  set  forth  all  obtainable 
evidence,  whether  or  not  it  jumps  with  his  theory. 

This  is  not  the  method  of  a  madman.  And  in  truth 
the  one  clear  impression  gained  from  the  De  Vita 
Propria  is  the  open-mindedness,  balance,  and  vigor  of 
the  intellect  behind  it,  an  impression  which  prevails 
throughout  the  investigation  of  Jerome  Cardan's  phy- 
sical and  mental  condition  in  all  its  tragic  peculiarity. 


Ill 

What  then  was  this  man?  Let  us  examine  the  facts 
which  he  has  placed  before  us. 

After  repeated  attempts  to  prevent  it,  Jerome  Car- 
dan was  born  into  the  world,*  ''half-dead,  with  a  head 
of  thick,  black  hair,  and  was  revived  only  when  im- 
mersed in  a  little  warm  bath  of  wine."  ^  His  mother 
was  a  young  widow  named  Chiara  Micheria;  his  father, 
1  Bom  1501.      '  Caput  II. 


THE    "DE    VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"         95 

Fazio  Cardan  of  Milan,  was  known  as  a  jurisconsult 
and  mathematician.  As  a  mathematician  his  grand- 
father also  was  noted.  It  seems  scarcely  worth  while 
to  point  out  how  this  instance  is  added  to  many  others 
which  show  the  direct  inheritance  of  the  mathematical 
genius,  and  more  particularly  the  phenomenon  of  the 
rapid  calculator  and  his  visualizing  faculty.  Cases  re- 
sembling Cardan's  are  mentioned  by  de  Candolle,^  and 
there  is  a  very  noteworthy  later  one  in  that  of  Bidder, 
the  Calculating  Boy.  With  his  appreciation  of  all  essen- 
tials needful  for  a  study  of  himself.  Cardan  has  given 
two  terse,  inimitable  portraits  of  his  parents. 

"  My  father  wore  scarlet  (contrary  to  the  custom  of 
the  town).  ...  He  was  a  stammerer  in  his  speech,  a 
lover  of  various  studies,  ruddy,  with  white  eyes  which 
saw  in  the  night.  .  .  .  He  was  studious  of  the  works 
of  Euclid,  and  round-shouldered,  .  .  .  and  my  eldest 
son,  from  the  hour  of  his  birth,  in  eyes,  mouth,  and 
shoulders  resembled  him.^  .  .  . 

"  My  mother  was  irascible,  of  excellent  memory  and 
intelligence,  short  of  stature,  fat,  pious.  "  ^ 

The  relation  between  the  elderly  lawyer  and  the  young 
widow  had  long  ceased  to  be  harmonious  or  affectionate. 
At  times  Fazio  Cardan  inhabited  the  same  house  as 
his  mistress  and  her  child;  then  again,  after  quarrels, 

^  A.  de  Candolle,  "Histoire  des  Sciences  et  des  Savants,"  p.  35. 
'  Caput  III. 

'  "Mater  fuit  iracunda,  memoria  et  ingenio  pollens,  parvae  sta- 
turae,  pinguis,  pia." 


96  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ensued  long  separations.  **  Except  for  their  high  tem- 
per," the  son  writes  significantly,  "  the  parents  had  in 
common  nothing  but  their  capriciousness  in  affection 
toward  their  child,  although  equally  indulgent." 

The  vitality  of  this  undesired  infant  aided  him  to 
survive  an  extraordinary  series  of  ills,  none  of  which,  he 
thinks,  is  too  trivial  to  be  set  forth  for  the  understanding 
of  his  mind  and  character.  It  is  a  formidable  catalogue, 
in  which  the  modern  physician  would  doubtless  detect 
a  certain  superfluous  and  misleading  specialization, 
Cardan  probably  describing  and  listing  as  separate 
diseases  the  particular  symptons  of  a  single  malady. 
His  first  nurse  died  from  plague,  of  which  the  baby 
showed  the  effects.  At  the  breasts  of  a  second  he  well- 
nigh  perished  from  malnutrition,  but  was  revived  by 
the  care  of  a  third.  He  was  taken  from  this  last  nurse, 
after  being  weaned,  in  his  fourth  year,  to  a  house  in 
Milan,  where  his  parents  and  his  mother's  sister  had 
established  themselves.  Here  the  child  soon  began  to 
suffer  all  the  agony  which  neglect  at  home  and  jeers 
abroad  can  bring  to  a  sensitive  nature.  Illness,  unkind- 
ness,  and  the  obloquy  of  base  birth  bit  like  acids  deep 
lines  upon  the  plate,  lines  which  were  to  tell  in  after 
years.  This  childhood  of  Cardan's,  in  truth,  is  harsh 
reading;  nor  does  it  seem  possible  to  convey  in  English 
the  note  of  intensity  thrilling  these  bald,  condensed, 
aloof  Latin  phrases  of  description. 

"I  was  forced  to  follow  and  be  a  servant  to  my 


THE    "DE    VITA   PROPRIA    LIBER"  97 

father,  and,  notwithstanding  my  delicate  physique  and 
tender  age,  to  pass  from  great  quiet  to  the  hardest  and 
quasi-continuous  exertion.  ...  I  was  beaten  without 
reason  by  both  father  and  mother,  and  made  ill  unto 
the  peril  of  death."  This  condition  finally  alarmed  his 
taskmasters,  so  that  after  a  severe  dysenteric  fever 
(due,  he  says,  to  eating  green  grapes  in  his  eighth 
year)  Cardan  observes:  ''Thus  ended  the  hard  task  of 
following  and  serving  my  father."  The  beatings  also 
were  abandoned,  so  that  later  with  his  characteristic 
justice  he  remarks:  ''When  I  grew  old  enough  to  do 
things  which  merited  blows  they  abstained  from  them." 
It  is  apparent  that  his  child's  growing  ability  along 
lines  congenial  to  the  father's  tastes  began  to  awaken 
in  him,  though  late,  some  interest  and  affection.  He 
ordered  a  regimen  for  the  boy's  health,  began  to  talk 
with  him  and  teach  him  orally  many  things.  The  son 
manifests,  it  seems  to  us,  an  exaggerated  gratitude  and 
respect  for  these  attentions;  indeed,  somewhat  like 
Herbert  Spencer,  he  mingles  a  perfect  candor  in 
respect  to  his  parents'  character  with  much  feeling 
for  them.  He  does,  however,  say  that  "toward  me 
my  father  was  of  better  temper  and  more  loving  than 
my  mother."  ^ 

How  frail  the  little  fellow  was,  how  unlike  to  live, 
we  may  guess  by  such  significant  statements  as  that 
he  was  neither  baptized  nor  named  until  his  eighth 
1  Caput  III. 


98  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

year,  and  that  then  his  father  was  already  educating 
an  heir  to  succeed  him.  ''Up  to  my  eighth  year/'  he 
says  elsewhere/  ''I  had  often  beaten  at  the  gates  of 
death,  but  those  within  refused  to  open  to  me."  Nei- 
ther the  illness,  the  neglect,  nor  the  cruel  beatings  of  his 
aunt  Margaret,  ''a  woman,"  he  says,  ''who  seemed  to 
be  without  skin,"  ^  —  implying  "  so  little  pity  had  she 
on  mine,"  —  were  to  do  more  than  harass  this  extraor- 
dinary tenacity.  Knowing  what  we  know  of  his  phy- 
sical condition  and  nervous  system,  it  may  surely  be 
taken  as  an  indication  of  an  inherent  vigor  and  balance 
of  intellect  that  such  treatment  did  not  produce  idiocy 
or  neurasthenia  long  before  manhood;  for  had  Cardan 
been  a  semi-insane  case  in  the  beginning,  the  treatment 
he  received  would  have  soon  left  no  doubt  whatever 
on  the  subject.  That  much  injury  was  inflicted  by  this 
unnatural  childhood  on  his  mature  life  is  indubitable; 
its  definiteness  and  extent  we  may  be  able  later  to 
determine. 

The  history  of  Cardan's  ill  health  and  attendant  nerv- 
ous symptoms  would  be  long  to  give  in  detail,  and  yet 
should  not  be  ignored.  It  is  largely  responsible  for  the 
personal  impression  he  made  on  his  contemporaries, 
and  also  for  the  beliefs  and  superstitions  which  he 
seems  to  over-emphasize.  The  correspondence  of  these 
cannot  be  well  understood  without  the  subjoined  table, 

1  "De  Utilitate  ex  Adversis  Capienda,"  pp.  427,  428. 
'  "Mulier  cui  fel  defuisse  existimo." 


THE    "DE    VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER' 


99 


Physical  Conditions. 
Attempted  abortion. 
Infancy:  Nearly  dead  at  birth. 
(3  wet  nurses). 

(A)  At    six    weeks   old. 
Plague. 

(B)  At  3  months.     Mal- 
nutrition. 

4  to  12  years  old:  Severe 
sweats,  bad  circulation. 
Dysenteric  fever,  weak- 
ness. Headache,  palpita- 
tions. 

12  to  26  years:  1.  Fevers, 
abscess  on  breast. 

2.  Cutaneous  itchings  and 

eruptions. 

3.  Cough,  suspected  phthi- 

sis. 

4.  Tertian  fever. 

5.  Catarrh. 

6.  Severe  blows  on  skull, 

leaving  scars. 
Bitten  by  a  dog. 
Nearly  drowned. 

26  to  70  years:  Gout,  haemor- 
rhoids, anaemia. 

(Otherwise  shows  gen- 
eral improvement.) 

At  72  years:  Slight  attacks  of 
pain. 

At  74  years:  Erysipelas. 


At  76  years; 

death. 


Prostration  and 


Nervous  Symptoms. 
Normal  from  1  year  to  4  years. 


Night  terrors,  screaming,  phan- 
toms rising  in  the  room, 
vision  of  a  red  cock. 


Spasmodic  twitchings.  Over- 
excitement.  Thoughts  of 
suicide.  Dread  of  impotency. 
Recurrent  dreams.  Voices 
in  his  ears.  Fears  of  high 
places,  mad  dogs,  water, 
and  general  nervous  coward- 
ice. 


Head-buzzing. 

Cessation  of  phantoms  and  of 


Recurrence  of  visions  and 
voices.   Cessation  of  dreams. 

General  and  acute  nervous 
prostration. 


which  shows  at  a  glance  much  that  is  overlaid  in  the 
text.  Certain  facts  not  without  significance  are  made 
plain.  The  steady  improvement  in  health  as  he  ap- 
proached middle  life  is  accompanied  by  a  steady  de- 


100  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

crease  in  definite  morbid  phenomena,  until  these  are 
revived  by  the  great  strain  of  his  son's  tragedy.  Success 
in  life  admitted  of  a  more  generous  regimen,  and  under 
this  many  symptoms  vanished  which  had  been  pro- 
voked by  malnutrition  during  childhood.  Dissipation, 
excitement,  and  overwork  developed  and  accentuated 
others,  and  had,  no  doubt,  their  share  in  confirming 
his  nervous  habits,  such  as  the  spasmodic  twitchings 
and  irregular  gait.  These  same  symptoms,  it  will  be 
remembered,  were  remarked  in  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson, 
and  ascribed  to  the  same  cause  of  privation  in  youth. 
The  physical  condition  of  Cardan  governed  his  outlook 
on  life.  He  suffered  from  nervous  cowardice,  from 
minor  ills  arising  from  anaemia,  and  from  a  dread  of 
impotency  which  remained  with  him  until  he  was 
thirty  years  old.  Investigators  like  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall  ^ 
have  lately  shown  us  the  prevalence  of  such  morbid 
fears  among  neuropathic  or  even  among  merely  nervous 
youth,  to  an  extent  which  deprives  this  fear  in  Car- 
dan of  any  individuality,  causing  it  to  become  merely 
symptomatic,  like  the  hunger  in  a  convalescent  from 
typhoid  fever.  The  manner  in  which  he  sets  these  data 
before  the  reader  will  serve  to  show  how  the  attitude  of 
the  diagnostician  prevails. 

''Morbid  symptoms  were  various:  first  of  all,  from 
my  seventh  to  my  twelfth  year,  I  roused  in  the  night 
screaming.   .   .   .   During  these  accesses  the  heart  beat 
*  "Adolescence." 


THE    "DE   VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"        101 

faster  than  usual.  .  .  .  During  youth  I  was  no  stranger 
to  inheritedpalpitations,  which,  though  severe,  yielded  to 
medical  art  so  that  I  was  entirely  released  from  them. 
...  I  am  very  fearful  and  timorous  by  nature  of  all  high 
places  and  nervous  about  mad  dogs.  As  I  know  that 
pleasure  consists  in  the  cessation  of  pain,  if  the  pain  is 
voluntary,  the  pleasure  can  be  summoned  at  will;  there- 
fore I  bit  my  lips,  or  twisted  my  fingers,  or  pricked  my 
skin,  or  pinched  the  muscle  of  my  left  arm,  until  it 
brought  tears.  And  thus  it  is  I  live  till  to-day  without 
blame."  1 

Frequent  repetition  in  these  passages  makes  it  neces- 
sary to  condense  in  the  translation,  but  there  are  parts 
which  deserve  to  be  given  almost  at  length,  and  chief 
among  them  is  Cardan's  description  of  himself: 

"  Of  middle  height,  with  short  feet,  toes  broad  at  the 
end,  and  so  high  of  heel  that  I  could  never  find  suit- 
able shoes,  but  must  always  have  them  made  especially, 
and  boots  also.  Chest  somewhat  narrow,  arms  slender. 
The  right  hand  clumsier,  with  straggling  fingers,  from 
which  palmists  pronounced  me  rude  and  stupid,  and 
I,  knowing  this,  was  ashamed.  .  .  .  But  the  left  hand 
beautiful,  rounded  in  form,  with  long  fingers  and  shin- 
ing nails.  Neck  rather  long  and  thin,  chin  cleft  in 
twain,  under  lip  full  and  hanging.  Eyes  fairly  small  and 
blinking,  save  when  I  gaze  upon  some  object." ^ 

^  "Quo  praesidio  sine  calumnia  adhuc  vivo."   Caput  III. 
2  Caput  V. 


102  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The  sentence  following  is  touched  by  his  unhappy 
hypersensitiveness :  "  Speech  shrill, — if  one  may  trust 
to  the  reproaches  of  those  who  profess  to  be  my  friends, 
— and  yet  cannot  be  heard  when  I  lecture.  My  gaze  is 
fixed,  as  one  who  meditates,  my  color  red  and  white, 
my  face  an  oblong,  though  not  large,  my  upper  teeth 
larger  than  the  lower." ^ 

The  accuracy  and  justice  of  this  description  can  only 
be  appreciated  when  reference  is  made  to  the  extant 
wood-cuts  and  medallion  profile  of  the  great  physician. 
On  studying  them  also  one  realizes  the  truth  of  his 
summing  up:  "  Of  all  these  things  the  result  in  me  is 
nothing  noteworthy,  which  is  so  true  that  of  the  many 
portrait-painters  who  have  come  to  delineate  me  from 
more  or  less  distant  countries,  not  one  found  my  fea- 
tures sufficiently  marked  or  distingui^ed,  so  that  he 
could  depict  them  at  a  single  survey."  And  to  this  he 
adds,  as  one  who  has  forgotten  a  detail:  ''  In  the  base 
of  my  throat  there  is  a  lump,  like  a  hard  little  sphere, 
not  particularly  conspicuous,^  derived  and  inherited 
from  my  mother.  " 

IV 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  study  to  dwell  upon  the 
varied  and  picturesque  aspects  of  Cardan's  career,  nor 
to  describe  the  vicissitudes  of  his  early  days,  those 

1  Caput  V. 

'  "Sphsemla  dura  non  admodum  conspicua."    Caput  V. 


THE   ''DE    VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"        103 

romantic  incidents  of  his  progress  from  the  position 
of  struggling  country  doctor  to  that  of  physician 
summoned  and  consulted  by  kings.  This  has  been 
done,  and  well  done,  elsewhere.  Our  concern  here  is 
first  and  foremost  with  the  self-student,  with  the  auto- 
biographer,  his  method  and  his  results,  with  the  data 
he  gives  and  the  influence  he  has  established.  Only 
such  outside  incidents  will  be  noted  as  contribute  to 
our  understanding  of  his  psychology. 

For  many  years  after  his  first  success  the  University 
of  Bologna  closed  its  doors  against  him;  nor  does  this 
fact  surprise  us  in  the  light  of  what  we  are  told.  Car- 
dan was  amazingly  deficient  in  worldly  prudence, 
and  had  a  gift  for  making  enemies  which  has  been 
rarely  equaled.  He  united  in  his  proper  person  the 
quarrelsomeness  of  a  Romney  with  something  of 
Whistler's  impish  caprice.  Surrounded  from  birth 
by  an  atmosphere  of  hostility  and  contempt,  it  bred 
in  him  an  habitual  antagonism.  As  one  reads  the 
account  of  his  contests,  public  and  private,  and  the 
manner  in  which  they  were  conducted,  the  wonder 
is  that  he  ever  rose  out  of  his  condition  of  embittered 
obscurity. 

*'  It   is  a  singular  defect   of   mine,"  he  observes,* 

"  that  I  will  talk  of  nothing  with  so  much  complacency 

as  that  which  I  know  to  be  displeasing  to  my  hearers. 

And  in  this  I  persevere  knowingly  and  willingly;  nei- 

'  Caput  XIII. 


104  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ther  am  I  ignorant  how  many  enemies  this  sole  defect 
procures  me." 

And  again :  — 

"  I  have  brought  myself  to  compose  my  face  into  the 
contrary  [expression]  always;  therefore  I  am  able  to 
simulate,  although  I  cannot  dissimulate.  To  the  acquire- 
ment of  this  [simulation]  I  have  bent  myself  with  great 
labor  for  fifteen  perpetual  years,  and  have  succeeded. 
...  I  am  too  little  pious,  but  rather  incontinent 
in  language,  and  (of  which  I  am  sorrowful  and  ashamed) 
extremely  irascible.  And  so  on  account  of  these  things 
I  walk  now  in  rags,  now  elegantly  clad;  now  silent,  now 
talkative;  now  joyful,  now  sad;  for  in  me  everything 
is  doubled."  ^ 

In  that  section  dealing  with  his  attitude  during  dis- 
putes, he  notes  that  he  was  particularly  active  and 
valiant  therein,  although  so  nervously  timid  in  other 
respects;  and  it  is  indeed  suggestive  that  his  first  book, 
The  Bad  Practice  of  Medicine  in  Common  Use,  was  a 
collection  of  bluntly  courageous  truths,  especially  likely, 
at  the  time,  to  give  offense.  But  all  this  is  not  given 
us  in  generalities  merely.  Among  the  most  graphic 
incidents  is  that  of  Jerome  Cardian's  interrupting,  from 
a  back  bench,  the  lecture  of  his  sometime  teacher  and 
rival,  Branda  Porrd,  who  was  giving  his  class  a  citation 
from  Aristotle.  Cardan  declared  that  the  speaker  had 
omitted  the  negative  particle,  thus  changing  the  entire 
» Caput  XIII. 


THE    **DE   VITA    PROPRIA   LIBER"         105 

sense  of  the  passage.  ^' '  No,  surely! '  exclaimed  Branda. 
I  mildly  maintained  the  opposite  (meanwhile  abund- 
antly spitting  according  to  my  custom)/  whereat  he 
angrily  sent  for  the  codex,  ordered  the  passage  in  ques- 
tion shown,  and  I  read  it  as  it  was  in  common  use. 
Suspecting  I  played  him  a  trick,  reading  him  one  thing 
for  another,  he  cried  out  I  was  deceiving  my  hearers,  and 
snatched  the  book  from  my  hands.  He  began  to  read, 
and  when  he  came  to  the  passage  in  dispute,  read  it, 
was  silent,  and  every  one  was  astounded."  The  man- 
ners here  seem  those  of  the  stable  rather  than  of  the 
lecture  room,  and  it  is  amusing  that  certain  of  his  trans- 
lators do  their  best  for  Cardan  by  causing  the  offensive 
word  to  take  the  sense  of  English  phlegm.  But  the  Latin 
leaves  no  doubt.  And  Cardan,  who  shows  humor  as 
well  as  pugnacity,  writes  of  this  and  other  like  incidents 
with  enjoyment;  just  as  he  treats  with  a  certain 
rough  colloquialism  his  relations  with  other  mathe- 
maticians,—  *'  Brother  "  Niccolo  Tartaglia,  as  he  terms 
him,  or  the  ungainly  person  to  whom  Cardan  alludes 
in  a  letter  as  ''  that  devil  of  a  Messer  Zuanne  da 
Coi "  (questo  diauolo  di  messer  Zuanne  da  Coi). 
Of  his  brilliant  pupil,  Lodovico  Ferrari,  and  of 
Antonio  Maria  Fior,  both  algebraists,  he  speaks  with 
more  respect. 

Faults  of  manner  and  bearing  lead  the  analyst  to  the 
'  Caput  XII," Ego  meo  more  pituitam  quo  abundo  exercens." 


106  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

deeper  questions  of  error  and  vice.  He  approaches  the 
subject  in  this  spirit:^  — 

''The  entire  argument  is  more  difficult  than  any  other, 
and  more  dangerous  to  reflect  upon;  .  .  .  yet,  as  the 
readers  of  lives  written  by  the  persons  themselves  must 
be  convinced  that  they  are  genuine  and  sincere,  I  have 
determined  in  this  narration  to  expose  myself.  ...  I 
am  not  ignorant  that  nature  has  created  me  irascible 
and  libertine;  among  my  chief  sins  are  pride,  proneness 
to  rage,  pertinacity  in  contention,  imprudence,  and 
desire  of  revenge.  .  .  .  Yet  I  am  truthful,  remembering 
benefits,  a  lover  of  justice  among  relatives  and  friends, 
with  a  contempt  for  wealth  and  a  great  desire  of  glory 
after  death.  .  .  .  Not  for  any  reason  have  I  in  good  for- 
tune or  in  happy  success  changed  my  customs,  nor  made 
myself  more  haughty,  nor  more  ambitious,  nor  more 
impatient,  nor  a  contemner  of  the  poor,  nor  forget- 
ful of  old  friends,  nor  rougher  in  my  manner,  nor  more 
elated  in  language,  nor  used  to  more  expensive  clothes." 

Cardan's  attitude  toward  sensual  vices  irresistibly  in- 
vites comparison  with  such  other  self-students  as  Au- 
gustin  and  Rousseau.  It  serves  also  to  confirm  us  in  our 
impression  that  a  man's  attitude  toward  this  subject 
on  paper  has  been  his  attitude  toward  it  in  life.  Jerome 
Cardan  handles  for  us  the  sum  total  of  his  sins  without 
shrinking,  with  justice,  and  with  a  total  absence  of 
pruriency.  If  nothing  else  were  needed,  his  treatment 
1  Caput  XIII. 


THE  "DE  VITA   PROPRIA   LIBER"        107 

of  the  question  displays  an  indubitable  sanity.  There 
are  no  sentimental  outpourings,  no  sensual  analyses, 
no  endeavor  to  recall  to  his  palate  by  writing  the 
flavor  of  vices  outworn.  The  investigation  is  con- 
ducted in  an  admirable  temper,  and  with  an  eye  single 
to  the  interests  of  the  truth.  He  lays  most  emphasis 
upon  the  serious  injury  his  excesses  did  to  his  hopes  of 
advancement  in  science,  as  well  as  to  influences  sur- 
rounding his  children.  Upon  a  single  phrase  which  he 
uses  to  describe  a  particular  year  of  his  life  —  "vitse 
Sardanapalse " — his  enemies  and  critics  built  a  bulk 
of  serious  accusation.  Our  present  feeling,  founded 
upon  a  deeper  confidence  in  Cardan's  accuracy  and 
sincerity,  leads  us  to  believe  that  he  made  use  of  this 
term  to  describe  a  life  of  general  debauchery,  and  that  if 
he  had  intended  anything  specific  he  would  have  said  so. 

'^  While  I  deliberated  how  rightly  to  live,  either  I 
sinned  partly  from  necessity,  partly  from  pleasures  offer- 
ing themselves  daily, ' '  he  says  sorrowfully.  ' '  Neglecting, 
on  account  of  an  evil  hope,  my  affairs  themselves,  I  erred 
in  deliberating,  and  more  frequently  I  sinned  in  the  act." 

The  worst  influence  in  Cardan's  life  he  believed  to 
lie  in  his  habit  of  gambling.  Often  he  returns  to  this, 
to  lament  the  disgraces  and  troubles  it  brought  upon 
him,  its  evil  effect  upon  the  future  of  his  sons. 

''  From  earliest  manhood  I  was  immoderately  given  to 
the  game  of  chess,  and  having  occupied  myself  there- 
with assiduously  for  many  years,  almost  forty,  it  is  not 


108  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

easy  in  the  telling  to  explain  briefly  how  much  I  suffered 
in  respect  to  my  family  affairs,  with  no  compensation. 
My  dicing  resulted  worse,  for  my  sons  were  instructed  in 
the  game  and  my  house  often  thrown  open  to  gamblers. 
No  excuse  remains  for  this  but  the  poverty  of  my  birth 
and  the  distresses  of  my  position,  for  I,  in  the  reliev- 
ing of  this  by  gambling,  was  not  altogether  foolish. 
I  prefer  to  serve  the  truth  at  all  times,  knowing  well 
that  silence  does  not  excuse  sin."^  Surely  these  phrases 
are  enough  to  show  plainly  that  the  man  who  wrote 
them  did  not  shirk  his  responsibilities  when  the  full 
penalty  of  his  children's  disgrace  fell  upon  him. 

Over  the  innumerable  details  of  life  and  habits  which 
the  philosopher  has  left  us,  this  is  hardly  the  place  to 
linger.  They  form  a  most  curious  commentary,  and 
serve  to  show  his  passion  for  minutiae.  That  he  pre- 
ferred fish  to  meat,  and  that  of  meats,  veal,  well  beaten 
with  the  blades  of  knives  before  it  was  stewed  in  its 
own  liquor,  was  his  favorite;  that  he  slept  ten  hours  a 
day  when  in  health,  took  only  half  a  pint  of  white  wine, 
watered,  with  his  dinner;  that  oil  suited  him  and  onions 
benefited  him,  and  that  sweets  and  peaches  did  not  dis- 
agree with  him, — all  these  and  much  more  he  describes 
to  us. 

The  student  is  referred  to  Mr.  Morley's  biography, 
wherein  all  this  information  is  admirably  assorted  and 
digested.  When  Cardan  tells  us:  ^  ''I  delight  in  pen- 
'  Caput  Xin.  2  Caput  XVHI. 


THE    "DE   VITA   PROPRIA   LIBER"         109 

knives,  and  to  provide  myself  have  spent  more  than 
twenty  gold  crowns;  also  have  I  spent  much  money  on 
various  sorts  of  pens,  and  in  preparations  for  writing, 
I  daresay,  no  less  than  two  hundred  crowns.  I  love 
gems,  vessels,  and  table-service  in  bronze  and  silver, 
painted  glass  globes,  and  rare  books,"  —  we  see  those 
tastes  which  sent  him  to  the  gaming-table.  He  was  also 
extravagantly  fond  of  animals,  to  such  a  degree  that 
he  places  them  thus  in  a  list  of  the  pleasures  of 
life: ''  History,  liberty,  continency,  small  birds,  cats  and 
dogs,  and  consolation  after  death."  In  his  younger 
days  he  was  shy  and  morose,  dreading  the  comments 
on  his  illegitimacy  and  poverty,  the  sneers  on  his  odd 
manner  and  appearance.  But  after  fame  brought  him 
deference,  and  he  became  the  physician  to  monarchs, 
he  assumed  a  tone  of  social  superiority  and  expressed 
his  preferences  with  decision.  *'  I  prefer  solitude  to 
company,  since  very  few  persons  are  not  rascals,  and 
none  are  truly  learned.  I  say  not  that  I  require 
learned  discussion,  for  all  that  is  a  small  matter;  but  why 
should  I  ever  be  obliged  to  lose  my  time?  For  that 
is  what  I  abhor.  "^  And  the  protest  is  one  at  all  times 
echoed  by  the  student. 

V 

When  Fazio  Cardan  began  to  observe  signs    of    an 
exceptional  mind  in  his  son,  he  became  anxious  that 
the  boy  should  pursue  a  career  of  law.   This  seemed  to 
*  "Hoc  est  quod  abhominor." 


no  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

him  the  best  field  in  which  Jerome  might  develop  both 
his  powers  of  logic  and  his  love  for  varied  information. 
At  the  end  of  the  section  wherein  Cardan  has  described 
the  regimen  of  his  life,  he  sets  down  his  reason  for  mak- 
ing choice  of  another  profession.  Assailed  and  weak- 
ened by  successive  maladies,  yet  passionately  anxious 
for  distinction,  he  early  set  to  work  to  study  his  own 
constitution  and  to  establish  a  rule  of  life.  There  again 
are  seen  his  scientific  attitude  and  the  flashes  of  intel- 
lectual domination,  which  were  never  wholly  obscured 
by  his  perverse  temper  and  ill-regulated  nerves. 

'^  I  have  remained  in  this  habit  from  an  early  age  in 
order  that  I  might  preserve  life.  The  study  of  medicine 
rather  than  law  aided  this  purpose,  both  as  closer  to 
an  end  and  as  common  to  the  whole  world,  also  to  all 
ages;  again,  as  less  artificial  and  as  more  conformable  to 
reason,  to  the  logic  of  eternal  nature,  and  not  to  the 
opinions  of  men.  Therefore  have  I  embraced  these 
studies  and  not  jurisprudence." 

His  profession  was  followed  by  Cardan  with  ardor, 
though  often  with  caprice,  and  always  with  that  ten- 
dency toward  diffuseness  and  that  love  of  novelty  which 
were  his  bane.  Nowhere  in  this  book  is  he  more  interest- 
ing than  in  the  chapters  dealing  with  his  intellectual 
growth,  from  that  on  Cogitations  as  to  Perpetuating  my 
Name  to  those  named  Erudition :  How  Acquired  and 
Cultivated  and  Five  Properties  Peculiar  to  Myself.  In 
the  beginning  he  was  hampered  in  his  work  by  an  insuf- 


THE    "DE   VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"         ill 

ficient  memory,  and  was  obliged  to  make  notes  for 
everything.  "  Quantum  potui  minus  memorise  reliqui 
quam  scriptis,"  he  puts  it.  But,  as  appears  to  be 
sometimes  the  case  with  this  function,  (and  here  con- 
nected beyond  doubt  with  the  early  conditions  of 
anaemia  displayed  by  Cardan),  after  reaching  a  cer- 
tain point  in  age  and  development  his  powers  of 
memory  became  both  sure  and  prodigious,  carrying 
him  onward  by  huge  leaps  which  appeared  to  him 
nothing  less  than  supernatural.  His  Latin  came  slowly 
indeed,  he  says,  compared  to  the  rapidity  with  which 
he  acquired  French,  Spanish,  and  Greek — the  last 
chiefly  in  a  dream.  The  time  has  gone  by  when  we  can 
join  the  Scaligers  and  Bayle  in  a  laugh  over  this  state- 
ment. Like  many  of  his  statements,  it  is  far  more  im- 
portant than  could  be  realized  by  his  contemporaries. 
The  effort  made  by  Cardan  to  understand  and  to 
account  for  his  mental  processes,  is  full  of  sugges- 
tiveness  for  us  to-day.  He  must  have  been  totally 
ignorant  of  the  logic  of  mental  development.  At  this 
time  the  circulation  of  the  blood  had  not  been  dis- 
covered; Vesalius  was  painfully  gathering  the  data  for 
his  anatomy;  no  such  thing  was  suspected  as  the  nerv- 
ous system.  A  powerful  imagination  like  Cardan's 
might  make  one  or  two  happy  hits,  but  cloudy  indeed 
must  have  appeared  the  wonder  of  consciousness.  That 
he  should  have  accounted  to  himself  for  such  phe- 
nomena as  this  sudden  increase  in   memorizing  and 


112  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

visualizing  faculty  while  learning  Greek,  by  a  semi- 
supernatural  explanation,  is  not  only  reasonable,  it  is 
inevitable.  The  fact  of  the  suddenness,  the  rapidity,  was 
plain  to  him;  nothing  could  shake  for  him  the  fact.  He 
did  not  have  Professor  Charles  Richet  to  assure  him, 
after  six  years  of  minute  experiment:  '*  There  exists  in 
certain  persons,  at  certain  moments,  a  faculty  of  acquir- 
ing knowledge  which  has  no  rapport  with  our  normal 
faculties  of  the  kind."  No  statistical  notes  existed  by 
which  he  could  compare  his  own  case  with  others.  And 
when  we  remember  how  large  a  part  dreams  played 
in  Cardan's  life,  the  connection  between  the  two  ideas 
ceases  to  be  in  any  manner  fantastic. 

In  many  other  ways  the  visualizing  power  of  his 
imagination  bewildered  this  observer.  His  perception 
of  the  multiphcity  of  personahty  deepened  for  him  the 
mystery  of  existence.  Seeing  himself  so  great  a  mass  of 
contradictions,  like  a  child's  puzzle  made  of  different 
colored  pieces,  calm  wisdom  jostled  by  unreasonable 
moods,  there  are  moments  when  he  seems  almost  about 
to  grasp  the  idea  of  the  interrelation  of  intellectual, 
nervous,  and  physical  conditions.  Dimly  he  perceives  the 
extent  of  those  reactions  which  have  steadily  widened 
their  limits  for  us,  till,  exhausted  by  the  effort  of  com- 
prehension, he  simply  disposes  of  the  subject  by  plac- 
ing it  frankly  in  the  realm  of  the  supernatural. 

He  was  from  the  first  passionately  desirous  of  fame. 

^'  I  entered  upon  the  reasons  for  desiring  to  perpetuate 


THE    "DE   VITA   PROPRIA   LIBER"         113 

a  name  far  earlier  than  I  was  able  to  realize  it;  for 
beyond  doubt  I  believed  that  life  bears  a  double 
aspect,  —  the  one  material  and  common  both  to  animals 
and  to  the  race,  the  other  peculiar  to  mankind,  studious 
of  glory  and  of  heroes."  Then,  with  commingled  pride 
and  sense  of  grievance,  he  proceeds  to  explain: 

"  Truly  on  the  one  hand  nature  failed  me,  hope 
abandoned  me;  on  the  other  hand  there  was  nothing 
on  which  I  owed  it  to  myself  to  rely,  neither  on  riches, 
nor  on  power,  nor  on  firm  health,  nor  on  bodily  vigor, 
nor  on  a  troop  of  friends,  nor  on  any  especial  industry 
of  my  own;  nor  was  I  even  familiar  with  the  Latin 
tongue,  .  .  .  nor  had  I  anything  from  my  parentage 
but  misery  and  shame." 

"  How  shouldst  write,  I  ask  myself,  things  to  be  read, 
and  of  anything  to  thee  noble  and  noteworthy,  so  that 
readers  can  desire  [it]?  And  in  what  style,  with  ele- 
gance of  substance,  so  that  they  may  continue  to 
read?  " 

He  glories  in  his  persistency,  repeating  and  dwell- 
ing, almost  with  relish,  upon  the  list  of  his  initial  mis- 
fortunes and  disadvantages. 

"  I  speak  of  the  pleasures  of  the  senses,  of  pageants, 
infirmities,  the  impotency  of  men,  the  malice  of  rivals, 
of  successes  not  prospering,  struggles,  conflicts,  threat- 
enings  from  those  in  power,  suspicion  of  certain  people, 
family   embarrassments,  lack  of  many  things,  dissua- 


114  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

sions  from  some,  whether  real  or  half  friends,  and  finally 
the  perils  on  account  of  heresy  which  assail  me.  .  .  . 

*'  Therefore  it  is  no  wonder  that,  thus  compelled,  I 
burned  with  the  love  of  fame;  rather  is  it  a  marvel  that 
notwithstanding  these  reasons  this  strong  desire  per- 
sists." 

These  sentences  were  written  at  seventy-five,  after 
Cardan  had  experienced  the  vanity  of  all  things,  in- 
cluding the  fame  for  which  he  burned. 

"It  is  not  hidden  from  me  that  these  things  are 
matters  of  indifference  for  future  ages,  and  especially 
to  strangers;  but,"  he  says,  and  here  his  mind  rises  to  its 
full  height,  "  of  what  else  should  I  speak,  having  made 
it  clear  that  there  is  naught  pertaining  to  mortals  which 
is  not  vain,  like  the  empty  shadow  of  a  dream,  except 
it  be  those  facts  which  make  up  the  sum  of  human 
existence? "  Here  we  note  again  that  sense  that 
"  there  is  nothing  more  pleasing  and  important  than 
knowledge  of  the  truth,"  which  has  governed  the  writer 
throughout,  and  which  gives  so  deep  a  pathos  and 
sincerity  to  his  self-delineation.  The  note  of  analysis 
here  is  depreciatory;  particularly  so,  no  doubt,  since  the 
book  was  written  after  his  son's  execution  for  murder; 
and  Cardan,  as  we  have  seen,  shouldered  his  full  share 
of  parental  responsibility  for  that  tragedy.  Yet  he  can- 
not deny  himself  one  boast:  — 

"  Although  I  am  most  timid  and  cold  of  heart,  yet 
I  am  warm  of  head,  and  given  to  perpetual  thought, 


THE    "DE   VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"         115 

revolving  in  my  mind  things  many  and  great  and  even 
impossible."  It  must  have  been  these  great  thoughts 
which  gave  him  happiness  in  his  feverish  life ;  for  among 
his  joys  he  reckons  chiefly  ''  the  hope  of  the  unex- 
pected, exercises  in  the  various  arts,  and  the  many 
changes  and  vastness  of  the  universe." 

A  perpetual  hopefulness  upbore  him,  which  he  took 
for  a  special  gift  of  his  tutelary  genius.  This  and  his 
independence,  in  an  age  when  the  scholar  was  too  often 
servile,  were  two  qualities  which  he  regarded  as  his  chief 
compensation  for  existence. 

Magnificent  is  his  retort  upon  the  sneers  and  criti- 
cisms of  this  world:  '^  I  have  lived  to  myself  so  far  as 
has  been  permitted  to  me,  and  in  hope  of  the  future  I 
have  despised  the  present." 

VI 

Before  discussing  that  aspect  of  the  De  Vita  Propria 
Liber  most  in  dispute,  or  considering  those  sections 
which  first  caused  men  like  Naud^,  Bayle,  and  Niceron 
to  proclaim  the  essential  madness  of  the  writer,  we  have 
at  least  prepared  ourselves  by  meeting  and  talking 
with  the  person  concerned.  We  have  noted  his  heredity, 
examined  his  physique,  heard  of  his  illness  and  the  cor- 
respondence of  certain  nervous  symptoms,  seen  him 
in  the  lecture  hall  and  among  men,  and  weighed  the 
temper  of  his  mind.  Posterity  has  played  the  part  of 
alienist  to  many  a  great  name,  but  rarely  has  it  been 


116  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

given  so  complete  a  history  of  the  case.  Moreover  it  were 
well  for  us  to  shoulder  the  responsibility  of  a  verdict, 
seeing  the  bias  of  the  contemporary  jury;  for  were  our 
enemies  to  be  the  judges  of  our  mental  soundness,  how 
many  of  us  would  walk  free  of  restraint?  Cardan's 
morbid  hypersensitiveness  and  irritability  were  joined 
to  a  blunt  independence  and  lack  of  tact,  which  would 
have  made  his  path  thorny  enough  without  the  addi- 
tional disadvantages  of  illegitimacy  and  eccentricity. 
It  was  difficult  during  his  life  for  him  to  obtain  a  hearing; 
the  difficulty  persisted  even  after  his  death.  He  be- 
lieved so  deeply  in  that  hope  of  future  fame  for  which 
he  had  despised  the  present,  that  he  was  confident  he 
had  left  behind  him  a  document  which  was  to  prove 
of  permanent  service  to  his  contemporaries  in  aiding 
them  to  understand  the  composition  and  operation  of 
a  certain  type  of  mind.  It  was  hardly  for  them,  it  is 
rather  for  us,  to  decide  if  he  were  justified. 

That  the  verdict  upon  Cardan,  measured  by  contem- 
porary knowledge,  was  natural,  is  not  for  an  instant 
denied  here.  Imagine  a  modern  physician  going  to  Car- 
dan or  to  Cassenate  and  maintaining  that  the  way  to 
control  epidemics  of  smallpox  was  to  give  the  disease 
to  every  one  in  a  milder  form;  or  that  to  cure  certain 
cases  of  deficiency  and  backwardness  in  children  he 
had  only  to  remove  the  small  hypertrophied  glands 
situated  back  of  the  nose!  Can  we  doubt  their  opinion 
of  that  man's  sanity?    The  need  for  a  retrial  of  Car- 


THE    "DE   VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"  117 

dan's  case  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  verdict  as  it  now  stands 
has  deprived  his  data  of  their  weight  and  value,  and 
the  modern  student  therefore  of  much  that  is  suggestive. 

For  here,  (it  does  no  harm  to  repeat  the  phrase), 
"  by  the  grace  of  God,"  sits  the  first  psychologist, 
gathering  material  by  the  aid  of  a  scrupulous  scientific 
method,  and  under  "  an  imperious  sense  of  duty/'  for 
the  furtherance  of  a  science  as  yet  unborn. 

That  "  twofold  "  nature  which  he  observed  in  him- 
self, is  further  displayed  when  it  comes  to  the  question 
of  his  religious  attitude.  This  may  best  be  described 
as  orthodox  with  flashes  of  skepticism.  By  temperament 
credulous,  nervous,  and  introspective,  he  was  perpe- 
tually under  the  correction  of  an  austere  and  upright 
intellect.  Superstition  forever  grovelling,  intellect  striv- 
ing to  lift  up  superstition  and  being  itself  dragged  down 
by  the  weight,  —  such  is  the  sculptured  group  a  Rodin 
might  make  to  picture  Cardan's  soul.  Happiness 
would  seem  impossible  to  a  nature  with  so  definite 
a  line  of  cleavage. 

In  this  book  we  may  observe  the  souls  of  many 
men.  In  some,  superstition  itself  is  radiantly  clothed 
by  faith  and  walks  with  an  uplifted  brow.  In  others, 
a  splendid  and  naked  reason,  the  freest  thing  in  the 
universe,  stands  before  us,  showing  our  weakness,  and 
showing  us  also  the  purity  of  that  "  haute  conscience 
morale  placee  en  face  de  I'univers  "  ^  which  forms  the 
^  E.  Renan,  "  Marc-Aur^le." 


118  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

religion  of  a  thinking  man.  But  in  this  unhappy  Ital- 
ian physician,  these  two  forces  appear  evenly  matched 
and  perpetually  at  war.  On  every  page  the  struggle 
is  before  us.  If  Cardan  recovers  from  an  attack  of 
gout  by  the  aid  of  prayers  and  offerings  to  his  patron, 
the  blessed  San  Martino,  he  adds  nevertheless:  "  I 
did  not  fail  to  take  the  proper  drugs."  If  he  predicts 
the  death  of  an  acquaintance  (he  was,  unfortunately 
for  himself,  given  to  such  predictions),  he  says: 
"  Not  only  the  stars  told  me,  but  I  knew  it  by  my 
medical  art."  No  one  appears  to  have  more  readily 
accepted  miraculous  illusions  as  coming  directly  from 
heaven,  yet  "  fasting,"  he  observes  in  De  Rerum 
Varietate,  "naturally  prepares  men  to  these  things," 
and  he  further  notices  that  ''  solitariness  ...  is 
the  cause  of  all  hermits'  illusions."  He  reminds  one, 
in  all  these  things,  of  that  devout  Roman  Catholic 
trained  nurse  who  was  fervently  delighted  to  give 
her  patient  some  water  from  Lourdes,  but  pasteur- 
ized it  first.  Similar  is  the  contrast,  for  instance,  be- 
tween this  physician's,  to  us,  wild  diagnoses  and  the 
intelligent,  reasonable  treatment  of  his  patients.  He 
may  decide  that  asthma  is  due  to  an  unhealthy  tem- 
perature of  the  brain,  and  that  its  attacks  coincide  with 
the  phases  of  the  moon.  Yet  the  treatment  he  pre- 
scribed for  his  portly,  self-indulgent  patient,  Arch- 
bishop Hamilton,  reads  for  all  the  world  like  a  modern 
"  cure," —  few  drugs,  ten  hours  sleep  per  day,  light  diet, 


THE   **DE   VITA   PROPRIA   LIBER"  119 

little  wine,  cold  baths,  and  horseback  exercise.  That 
this  regimen  made  of  the  archbishop  a  new  man,  sur- 
prises us  to-day  much  less  than  it  did  his  entourage. 
But  that  a  doctor  so  intelligent  as  to  believe  that 
everything  together  will  contribute  to  the  success  of  a 
cure  —  diet,  sleep,  friends,  sunshine,  as  well  as  drugs  — 
should  also  cast  horoscopes  and  rely  on  astrology,  need 
not  astonish  us  after  all.  Credulity  appears  to  be  an 
affair  of  temperament  rather  than  of  intellect;  and 
scorners  of  Cardan  should  not  forget  those  eminent 
scientists  who  listened  so  gravely  to  Mrs.  Piper, 
and  who  sponsor  the  Psychical  Research  Society. 
Phrenology  has  counted  among  its  followers  quite  as 
many  important  names  as  astrology;  and  besides, 
credulity,  in  Cardan's  day,  was  a  part  of  the  very  fabric 
of  men's  minds.  Mr.  Morley,  who  is  made  rather 
uneasy  by  it,  cites  similar  attitudes  in  Kepler,  Newton, 
Pascal,  and  Tycho  Brahe. 

The  fairness  of  mind  wherewith,  as  we  have  seen,  Car- 
dan presents  all  the  facts  in  cases  of  seeming  miracle, 
is  to  us  but  a  proof  of  his  serious  autobiographical  in- 
tention; to  his  contemporary  readers  it  seemed  but 
another  inconsistency.  If  San  Martino's  intercession 
cured  the  gout,  why  mention  useless  drugs?  Neither 
can  they  see  anything  consistent  in  Cardan's  analysis 
of  the  factors  which  contributed  to  his  success  in  medi- 
cine. His  strict  following  of  Galen,  whom  he  imitated 
in  more  ways  than  one,  is  the  first  given  of  these;  the 


120  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

second  is  experience,  "  which  taught  me  more,"  he 
asserts,  "  than  any  rules."  The  final  factor  is  that  in- 
sight into  the  cause  of  disease  which  was  a  gift  to  him, 
he  believed,  of  his  tutelary  daemon.  Like  the  results  of 
certain  mathematical  calculations,  this  insight  was  not 
made  up  of  separate  steps  of  reasoning,  conscious  enough 
for  Cardan  to  perceive  and  follow,  but  belonged  to  his 
visualizing  imagination.  He  saw  the  cause  of  disease, 
or  the  total  of  a  cube  root,  he  maintains,  in  the  fore 
part  of  his  brain,  as  if  it  came  in  a  dazzling  light.  Of 
course  this  statement  was  received  with  shouts  of  deri- 
sive laughter.  Yet,  laying  aside  the  exaggeration  which 
must  come  from  any  attempt  to  attach  definite  concepts 
to  what  is  inconceivable  to  most  of  us,  —  to  catch  and 
hold  any  part  of  that  nebulous  and  delicate  haze  in 
which  so  many  of  our  mental  processes  are  shrouded, — 
Cardan's  description  appears  to  be  fairly  accurate.  The 
testimony  of  other  rapid  calculators  bears  him  out  upon 
this  point.  Similar  statements  are  given,  though  less 
fully,  by  Descartes,  by  Pascal,  by  Isaac  Newton,  and 
later  by  Zerah  Colburn  and  by  Bidder,  the  Calculating 
Boy,  These  possessors  of  this  faculty  appear  to  main- 
tain it  as  a  visualizing  power  of  the  imagination,  pre- 
senting to  their  minds,  in  one  image,  the  total  result 
of  a  number  of  logical  steps  taken  with  inconceivable 
rapidity,  and  subconsciously.  Cardan's  statement  is 
but  another  example  of  what  Mr.  Symonds  calls  "  mis- 
interpreted observation";  and  our  fuller  knowledge  bears 


THE    "DE    VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"         121 

him  out  in  the  accuracy  of  this  observation  quite  as 
completely  as  Cellini's  statement  about  his  halo  is  ex- 
plained by  his  translator. 

Unquestionably,  similar  faculties  are  put  in  opera- 
tion by  the  trained  physician  during  diagnosis.  Any  one 
who  has  seen  a  great  doctor  at  work,  who  has  observed 
the  glance  which  at  once  grasps  and  fits  together  an 
hundred  details,  while  to  the  alert  intellect  a  clear  image 
is  presented,  will  at  once  recognize  the  picture  of  Car- 
dan before  the  cradle  of  the  sick  child,  in  the  house 
of  Sfondrato.  We  can  see  the  gabbling  incompetents 
who  filled  the  room,  talking  of  this  and  that  and  squab- 
bUng  among  themselves;  then  the  arrival  before  the 
frightened  father  of  this  unknown  doctor, —  surely  not  a 
reassuring  figure,  barefooted,  poorly  dressed,  absorbed 
and  brusque;  his  pause  before  the  cradle  of  the  patient; 
his  examination  during  a  silence  of  perfect  concentra- 
tion, and  then  the  authoritative  pronouncing  of  the 
disease.     Truth  had  flashed  before  that  inner  eye. 

Closely  examined,  therefore,  it  may  be  seen  how- 
little  foundation  these  two  statements  of  Jerome  Car- 
dan's give  for  terming  him  lunatic.  That  he  should 
have  thought  them  supernatural  gifts  was  not  only 
natural  but  logical.  Since  he  could  relate  his  faculty 
to  no  natural  process  with  which  he  was  acquainted, 
it  must  be  supernatural.  How  could  one  expect  him 
to  think  otherwise?  The  anomaly  lay  in  his  both  pos- 
sessing the  faculty  and  trying  to  understand  it;    his 


122  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

being,  in  other  words,  both  an  ItaUan  of  the  sixteenth 
century  and  a  psychologist  of  the  twentieth. 

In  the  section  termed  Properties  Peculiar  to  Myself 
he  describes  the  manifestations  of  his  visuaHzing  ima- 
gination. Passing  into  conditions  almost  of  ecstasy 
during  study  is  another  of  these  properties.  Warn- 
ings in  dreams  and  from  spots  on  his  fingers  are  minor 
idiosyncrasies.  It  is  his  statement  of  these  peculiari- 
ties on  which  the  charge  of  insanity  is  chiefly  based. 
But  he  was  made  also  the  subject  of  fierce  attacks 
because  of  his  confidence  in  his  cures  of  consumption. 
Now  that  we  have  heard  what  treatment  he  prescribed 
for  Archbishop  Hamilton's  asthma,  we  can  readily 
believe  that  his  apparent  success  in  certain  cases  of 
consumption  might  well  make  him  confident.  It  only 
remains  to  point,  without  further  comment,  to  the 
chapter  discussing  these  cures;  for  he  does  not  in  a 
single  instance  omit  to  tell  us  whether  the  patient 
relapsed  and  whether  he  dies  of  his  disease.  This  entire 
justice  does  not  bespeak  an  over-confidence,  while  it  gives 
us  greater  warrant  for  believing  him  trustworthy. 

Cardan's  belief  in  omens  and  visions  was  extreme  even 
for  his  own  day,  and  is  perhaps  sufficient  to  warrant  M. 
Ribot  in  calling  him  "nevropathe  "  and  "  desequilibr^." 
The  keynote  to  a  fuller  understanding,  however,  lies 
in  the  information  we  have  been  given  as  to  his  child- 
hood, which  links  him  with  other  cases  of  anaemic 
children  in  more  modern  days.   Conditions   of   over- 


THE    "DE    VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"        123 

stimulated  imagination  and  nerves  in  badly  nourished 
youth  are  common  and  sufficiently  recognized.  Among 
autobiographers  in  this  respect,  Cardan  is  not  alone. 
Later  will  be  found  such  instances  as  those  of  Guibert 
de  Nogent,  of  Agrippa  d'Aubigne,  of  John  Bunyan, 
and,  nearer  our  own  day,  of  John  Addington  Symonds, 
Samuel  Roberts,  P.  G.  Hamerton,  and  others. 

In  a  footnote,  Mr.  Morley  asserts  visions  simi- 
lar to  Cardan's  in  his  own  childhood,  similar  both 
in  texture  and  in  the  manner  of  their  apparition.  An 
arch  of  transparent  figures,  colorless,  built  up  of  smoke- 
like rings,  rose  out  of  the  carpet  from  one  corner  of 
the  room,  to  descend  in  another  and  vanish.  Houses, 
castles,  animals,  knights  on  horseback,  plants,  trees, 
trumpeters  blowing,  groves,  forests  and  flowers, —  these 
swept  before  the  half-dreaming  eyes  of  Fazio  Cardan's 
poor  little  overstrained  and  underfed  child,  and  thus 
early  habituated  him  to  marvels.  A  red  cock  haunted 
his  bedtime  hours.  With  approaching  manhood  these 
visions  dwindled,  but  they  had  stamped  his  mind  with 
an  ineffaceable  credulity.  Every  act  of  existence  was 
accompanied  by  its  miracle.  Howling  dogs,  croaking 
ravens,  sparks  emitted  from  broken  sticks,  tremblings 
of  the  house,  and  the  seeming  non-natural  action  of 
fire,  water,  and  wind, —  by  such  incidents  the  philos- 
opher strove  to  guide  his  steps  in  this  obscure  and 
perplexing  world. 

He  was,  it  will  readily  be  believed,  one  of  those  care- 


124  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

less  and  preoccupied  persons  who  often  seem  singled  out 
for  the  blows  of  fate.  Dogs  rushed  at  him,  bricks  fell  on 
him,  houses  he  tenanted  collapsed.  The  tutelary  genius 
who  saved  his  life  on  three  occasions  was  in  truth  the 
happiest  invention  of  Cardan's  optimism;  for  existence 
would  hardly  have  been  endurable  but  for  some  such 
shifting  of  the  responsibility.  He  was  affectionate  and 
emotional  in  all  his  relations  of  life, —  a  respectful  and 
forgiving  son,  an  over-indulgent  and  devoted  father, 
and  a  kind  husband.  Little  is  told  us  of  his  wife  save 
by  the  Carmen  with  which  he  bewails  her  death. 
He  beheld  her  first  in  a  dream,  standing  in  a  garden 
such  as  Pulci  might  describe.  When  he  came  to  know 
her,  the  situation  seemed  hopeless.  ^' Truly,  I  said  to 
myself,  what  am  I  to  do  about  this  maid?  If  I  take  her 
to  wife,  poor  as  I  am,  having  nothing,  and  burdened 
with  her  brothers  and  sisters,  I  shall  perish,  since  I  can 
scarcely  support  myself.  If  I  try  to  abduct  or  secretly 
possess  her,  it  will  not  fail  to  be  known;  and  her  father, 
the  captain,  is  not  like  to  suffer  such  an  insult  to  go 
unpunished.  In  either  case  what  will  become  of  me? 
If  the  best  happens,  flight  must  be  my  task.  O  miser- 
able me !  .  .  .  While  these  and  like  thoughts  revolved 
in  my  mind,  it  seemed  better  to  die  than  to  live  in 
such  a  manner." 

Their  marriage  took  place  among  evil  omens.  The 
eldest  son,  Gianbattista,  at  birth  strikingly  resembled 
Cardan's  own  father,  Fazio.   He  grew  up  an  apparently 


THE    "DE   VITA    PROPRIA    LIBER"        125 

harmless,  if  not  very  brilliant  youth,  and  certainly 
gained  no  benefit  from  the  society  of  the  gamblers  and 
musicians  who  filled  the.  house.  For  this,  as  for  the 
whole  responsibility  of  his  children,  Cardan  acknow- 
ledged the  blame.  ''  It  is  true,"  he  observes,  "  that  I  am 
as  deaf  and  blind  when  I  am  with  my  books."  Gian- 
battista  went  from  bad  to  worse,  married  a  woman  of 
the  town;  and,  after  a  wretched  life  trying  to  support 
her  and  her  family,  he  put  arsenic  into  their  food  at 
supper.   It  killed  his  wife. 

This  infamy  overtook  the  father  at  the  summit  of  his 
fame.  He  had  made  a  triumphal  return  from  Scotland 
and  his  cure  of  Archbishop  Hamilton's  case.  He  had 
refused  the  post  of  private  physician  to  the  King  of 
Denmark.  In  Paris  and  Lyons,  patients  with  bags  of 
gold  ducats  came  from  leagues  away  to  consult  him.  At 
the  time  this  blow  fell,  his  health  was,  comparatively 
speaking,  good;  the  abnormalities  of  the  nervous  sys- 
tem had  much  diminished;  his  intellectual  energies  were 
at  their  height.  The  strain  of  his  son's  trial  revived  his 
attention  to  omens.  Buzzings  in  his  ears  became  fre- 
quent. *'If  the  argument  I  entered  upon  was  conten- 
tious," he  has  said,  ''  the  buzzing  became  a  tumult  of 
voices."  On  the  day  the  wretched  Gianbattista  con- 
fessed his  crime.  Cardan  had  noticed  a  red  mark  on 
his  finger;  his  bed  had  been  shaken  by  an  earthquake. 
"  When  I  was  sitting  in  my  library  I  heard  with  diffi- 
culty the  voice,  telling  briefly,  of  one  who  confesses  his 


126  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

misery  to  a  priest,  choked,  moaning  in  its  accent.  .  .  . 
My  heart  was  torn  asunder,  broken." 

The  effect  upon  the  old  man  was  far-reaching.  In 
his  son's  defense  he  had  spent  all  his  money.  There 
were  not  wanting  those  to  say  that  the  murderer  had 
availed  himself  of  his  father's  knowledge  of  drugs;  and 
at  Cardan's  seventy  years  the  damage  to  his  medical 
reputation  was  irretrievable.  He  suffered  a  complete 
prostration,  "  during  which  I  could  not  bear  to  look 
upon  my  books,"  he  writes,  "  .  .  .  and  hate  all  I  here- 
tofore esteemed."  He  begins  once  more  to  talk  about 
his  tutelary  daemon,  to  remember  vague  mysterious 
happenings  in  the  past,  to  turn  his  eyes  upon  the  mirac- 
ulous and  supernatural  world. 

Belief  in  a  daemon  was  not,  of  course,  original.  It 
came  nearer  than  Socrates,  for  Fazio  had  had  it  before 
his  son.  But  in  Jerome's  case  it  was  bound  up  with 
his  appreciation  of  his  own  contradictions.  "At  times  I 
seem  happy  and  loquacious,  at  others  silent  and  mel- 
anchoh^,  which  serves  to  show  the  double  that  I  am." 
The  daemon  guided  this  double  nature,  gave  the  vivid, 
warning  dreams,  the  half-waking  dawn-visions,  and 
helped  him  to  take  those  deep  draughts  of  Greek. 
The  daemon  displayed  to  him  the  results  of  mathemati- 
cal calculations  and  the  rapid  diagnoses  in  disease.  It 
is  much  as  if  he  were  following  Professor  James's 
humorous  advice:  "Whatever you  are  totally  ignorant 
of,  assert  to  be  the  explanation  of  everything  else." 


THE    "DE   YLTA   PROPRIA   LIBER"       127 

Nothing  is  more  contradictory  than  the  humor  of 
Cardan.  He  writes  often  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye. 
Take  his  account  of  his  reason  for  abandoning  a  certain 
series  of  pubHc  lectures.  ''  In  the  year  1552,  having 
left  in  the  house  a  little  cat  of  placid  and  domestic 
habits,  she  jumped  upon  my  table  and  tore  at  my 
public  lectures;  yet  my  book  of  Fate  she  touched  not, 
though  it  was  the  more  exposed  to  her  attacks.  I  gave 
up  my  chair,  nor  returned  to  it  for  eight  years."  And 
by  the  way,  the  various  versions  of  this  vivacious  little 
anecdote  well  display  the  uncertainties  in  translation  of 
the  De  Vita  Propria.  Professor  Mantovani  renders 
catula  as  a  little  puppy,  and  super  dbacum  as  the  top  of 
a  work  bench.  Mr.  Morley  calls  the  animal  a  cat,  which 
to  us  sounds  more  likely,  and  places  the  scene  of  her 
depredations  on  the  roof  of  Cardan's  house.  Two  simpler 
Latin  words  do  not  exist,  and  it  serves  to  show  that  a 
full,  authoritative  translation  of  the  De  Vita  Propria 
Liber  is  demanded  by  the  interests  of  the  case. 
Whether  cat  or  dog,  in-doors  or  out,  we  may  be  quite 
sure  that  Cardan  would  have  found  his  pet's  action 
equally  ominous. 

But  omens  now  and  guiding  dreams  were  dulled  and 
broken.  There  were  no  more  ecstasies  of  study  nor 
dazzling  revelations  of  truth.  Cardan  was  an  old  man, 
poor  and  lonely.  De  Thou  mentions  having  seen  him  in 
Rome  the  year  before  he  died,  *'  habill^  d'une  fagon 
toute  extraordinaire."    His  eccentricities  of  dress  and 


128  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

bearing  were  just  those  we  have  come  to  associate  with 
the  typical  learned  man,  with  the  absent-minded,  abrupt 
student.  Men  nudged  each  other  when  they  saw  this 
strange  old  man  go  by,  with  the  fixed  gaze,  the  un- 
even gait,  the  forked  yellow  beard,  talking  to  himself. 
So  men  have  looked  upon  the  savant  from  Dr.  Johnson 
to  Theodor  Mommsen.  ''Since  no  man  has  ever  owned 
full  tranquillity  nor  peace,"  Cardan  says  philosophi- 
cally, ''doubtless  he  never  will." 

He  wrote  the  last  words  of  this  study  after  the  cul- 
minating insult  of  an  imprisonment  for  heresy.  They 
are  written  in  a  spirit  of  justice;  for  it  is  justice  he  de- 
mands as  he  answers  the  questions  of  "that  imperious 
sense  of  duty."  Some  bitterness  must  have  left  him, 
some  peace  befallen  when  he  closed  the  book.  A  month 
later  we  may  write  of  him  as  he  wrote  of  his  father: 
^'  Mens  seterna  manet."  "  There  remains  the  eternal 
mind." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

INFLUENCE  AND  IMITATION 

While  every  one  may  not  agree  with  Leslie  Stephen 
that  "  a  dull  autobiography  has  never  been  written/* 
he  will  at  least  concede  that  every  important  autobio- 
graphy has  been  imitated.  The  degree  of  personal  in- 
fluence and  the  extent  of  this  imitation  must  be  glanced 
at  before  we  leave  the  general  aspects  of  the  subject. 
In  his  hand  the  reader  of  any  personal  narrative  holds 
one  end  of  a  long  chain,  which,  if  he  will,  he  may  exam- 
ine link  by  link.  It  has  been  proved  that  the  attitude 
which  regards  the  Confessions  of  Rousseau  or  those 
of  Teresa  as  isolated  phenomena,  is  erroneous.  The 
space  of  time  intervening  between  the  manifestations 
of  this  impulse  argues  nothing.  As  logically  might  we 
assert  that  the  thunderclap  has  no  connection  with  the 
lightning  flash,  because  they  do  not  reach  us  simulta- 
neously. As  a  matter  of  fact,  these  spaces  of  time  are 
much  briefer  than  is  supposed.  Study  of  contempora- 
neous autobiographical  groups  throws  much  light  on 
the  origin  of  apparently  sporadic  examples. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  from  the  date  when  the 
self-presentation  became  an  established  form  of  literary 
expression,  the  personal  influence  of  the  author  became 
a  matter  of  the  deepest  significance.     No  sincere  sub- 


130  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

jective  autobiography  has  been  written  which  has  not 
exercised  an  influence,  directly  or  indirectly,  upon  the 
generations  following.  Next  to  the  quality  of  the  auto- 
biographical intention  the  measure  of  this  influence  may 
be  taken  as  a  factor  in  determining  its  sincerity,  in 
accounting  for  its  survival.  If  the  document  under  our 
consideration  has  exercised  no  traceable  personal  influ- 
ence on  later  similar  documents,  we  may  have  warrant 
for  doubting  its  underlying  sincerity,  for  questioning 
its  value.  There  are,  of  course,  exceptions  to  this  rule, 
but  they  are  few. 

The  objection  that  it  is  humanly  impossible  to  em- 
brace all  extant  autobiographical  material  in  the  com- 
pass of  a  single  survey,  and  that  the  omission  of  one 
document  nullifies  the  whole  work,  is  thus  answered  by 
the  fact.  Selection  of  cases  becomes  not  only  natural 
but  advisable,  according  to  the  laws  underlying  the 
cases  themselves.  Thus  we  may  rest  secure  in  the 
knowledge  that  if  we  have  lost  little  in  the  records  of 
-^milius  Scaurus  or  Quintus  Lutatius  Catulus,  we  have 
lost  much  in  the  Commentaries  of  Sulla,  with  their 
acknowledged  influence  over  the  mind  and  style  of 
Csesar. 

Turning  to  our  three  archetypes,  Csesar,  Augustin, 
and  Cardan,  we  see  at  once  the  confirmative  proof  of 
their  influence,  traceable,  both  directly  and  indirectly, 
from  record  to  record,  from  mind  to  mind.  Blaise  de 
Monluc,  mxirechal  de  France^  acknowledges  his  indebt- 


INFLUENCE   AND    IMITATION  131 

edness  to  the  example  of  Caesar  in  a  plain  statement  at 
the  head  of  his  book.  His  Commentaires  were  termed 
by  no  less  a  person  than  Henri  IV,  Le  Bible  des 
Soldafs.  The  manner  as  well  as  the  matter  of  the 
book,  even  over  the  stretch  of  centuries,  preserves  a 
certain  spurring  energy.  It  is  a  manual  of  military 
behavior,  of  personal  courage,  written  for  the  era  when 
the  individual  counted  for  much  on  the  field  of  battle. 
"Arms  and  the  man"  is  Monluc's  theme;  he  counsels, 
he  warns,  he  exhorts.  "  0  capitaines,  mes  compagnons  I " 
he  cries,  see  how  I  fared,  and  felt,  and  overcame  I  To- 
day, when  war  is  a  question  of  money  and  machinery 
rather  than  of  men;  when  it  is  a  rare  and  distasteful 
episode  in  the  life  of  an  individual  or  of  a  nation,  one 
forgets  that  it  was  once  an  absorbing  and  splendid 
daily  business.  So  Monluc  regarded  it.  "  M'estant  re- 
tire chez  moy  en  Page  de  soixante-quinze  ans,  pour 
trouver  quelque  repos  apres  tant  et  tant  peines  par 
moy  souffertes  pendant  le  temps  de  cinquante-cinq 
ans  que  j'ay  porte  les  armes,"  begins  this  sixteenth 
century  soldier,  disdaining  to  apologize  for  any  lack 
of  the  literary  habit,  and  yet  adding:  *' Je  prie  ceux 
qui  les  liront  de  ne  les  prendre  point  comme  escrits  de 
la  main  d'un  historien,  mais  d'un  vieux  soldat,  et  encore 
gascon,  qui  a  escrit  sa  vie  k  la  verite,  et  en  guerrier." 
Unforgettably  vivid  are  his  pictures,  even  through  the 
clouds  of  antique,  involved  French.  Though  Monluc's 
life  was  all  but  passed  in  harness,  yet  his  volumes  are 


132  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

no  mere  bald  records  of  sieges  and  skirmishes.  He  is 
subjective  and  minute  to  such  a  degree  that  one  wonders 
if  some  study  of  the  individual  warrior,  as  such,  did 
not  really  underlie  his  purpose.  His  own  constitution, 
physical  and  mental,  passes  under  close  observation; 
his  energy,  his  cruelty  to  the  enemy,  his  severity  to  his 
household,  his  vanity,  his  wounds,  his  fevers,  their 
treatment,  their  effects,  —  nothing  escapes  him.  When 
his  tactlessness  to  his  sovereign  does  him  disfavor,  he 
comments  on  it:  "0  qu'un  homme  qui  vit  parmy  les 
grands  doit  estre  sage!  "  he  warns  his  readers.  Boasting 
of  his  savage  courage  and  his  feats  of  daring  cruelty, 
he  yet  avows:  "  Que  je  me  trouve,  en  voyant  les  enne- 
mis,  en  telle  peur  que  je  sentois  le  coeur  et  les  membres 
s'affoiblir  et  trembler.  Puis,  ayant  dit  mes  petites 
prieres  latines,  je  sentois  tout-^-coup  venir  un  chaleur 
au  coeur  et  aux  membres,"  and  in  the  avowal  shows 
an  experience  we  notice  also  in  Lord  Wolseley.  This 
account,  and  the  description  of  a  wound  from  an  arque- 
busade,  which  "  broke  his  face  all  in  pieces,"  serve  him 
as  texts  for  long  analyses  of  religion  as  an  aid  to  courage, 
and  of  the  surgical  resources  of  the  battlefield  at  that 
time  —  analyses  which  go  beyond  the  surface  into  the 
psychology  of  the  subject.  In  fact,  Monluc's  extraor- 
dinary combination  of  subjective  self-delineation  with 
almost  an  epic  touch  in  crises  of  excitement,  caused  his 
book  to  have  an  instant  power  over  a  large  circle  of  lay 
and  military  readers.    In  Paul  Courteault's  Monluc, 


INFLUENCE   AND    IMITATION  133 

an  admirably  thorough  study,  little  raaterial  has  been 
produced  to  alter  the  total  effect  of  the  Commentaires. 
Courteault  himself  thinks  that  Monluc  was  more  cal- 
culating and  complex  than  he  would  avow;  that  his 
whole  figure,  possibly,  is  too  simple,  too  idealized.^ 
And,  with  that  ignorance  of  psychological  bases  which 
so  often  hampers  the  critic  in  his  conclusions,  Courteault 
takes  pains  to  point  out  that,  while  Monluc  wrote 
primarily  for  apologetic  reasons  and  to  establish  another 
view  of  certain  of  his  actions,  yet  "  il  etalait  avec  une 
franchise  terriblement  naive  ses  actes  les  moins  recom- 
mandables."  The  adjective  terriblement  here  is  very 
illustrative  of  the  terre-a-terre  attitude  of  the  historian, 
even  when  his  critical  work  is  authoritative.  Cour- 
teault does  us  lasting  service  by  the  connection  he 
establishes  between  the  Marshal's  work  and  that  of 
Martin  du  Bellay.  From  du  Bellay,  Monluc  learned 
method  and  arrangement,  and  he  revised  his  book  by 
the  aid  of  the  Histoire  de  Notre  Temps  of  Guillaume 
Paradin.  Unquestionably,  the  Commentaires  served 
to  whet  that  sixteenth  century  appetite  for  war  stories 
which,  Courteault  thinks,  gave  an  impetus  to  the  whole 
literary  movement  of  the  French  memoire. 

However  that  may  be,  an  outbreak  of  imitations 
followed  Monluc,  military  and  military-political.    Such 
are  the  Memoir es  of  the  Dues  de  Sully  and  La  Roche- 
foucauld; such  also,  frankly  inspired  by  Monluc,  is  that 
*  P.  Courteault,  "  Monluc,"  page  612. 


1S4  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  Bassompierre.  But  Bassompierre  is  not  a  man  of 
one  idea.  Longing  for  military  glory,  he  yet  endangered 
his  ambition  by  his  incurable  giddiness  of  mind.  He 
was  a  creature  of  humor  and  of  wit,  with  a  lucid  and 
vivacious  style  and  touches  of  modern  irreverence.  No 
one  can  forget  that  Saint-Simon,  reading  in  his  tent 
the  Memoires  de  Bassompierre,  was  roused  by  it  to 
write  his  own  greater  Memoires.  Knowing  Saint-Simon, 
we  turn  to  his  predecessor  expecting  to  find  him  at 
least  the  same  kind  of  a  man,  and  his  book  of  a  similar 
texture,  stiff,  serious,  dignified.  Nothing  more  unlike 
the  truth  can  be  conceived;  no  man  more  unlikely  to 
affect  Saint-Simon  could  be  imagined.  Bassompierre  is 
everything  Saint-Simon  most  disliked,  distrusted,  and 
deprecated.  He  is  flippant,  he  is  dissipated,  he  is 
irreverent;  he  dared  employ  toward  his  sovereign  a 
tone  of  lively  repartee.  He  was  never  free  from  money 
difficulties  or  undignified  amours.  There  is  only  one 
apparent  ground  of  sympathy  between  these  two  men: 
in  the  pages  of  Bassompierre,  as  in  those  of  Saint-Simon, 
questions  of  prerogative,  caste,  and  court  etiquette 
appear  treated  at  disproportionate  length.  For  the 
rest,  had  we  read  that  Saint-Simon,  the  rigid,  the  cere- 
monious, the  bulwark  of  the  divinity  of  kings,  threw 
the  volume  of  the  impudent  Bassompierre  across  his 
tent  with  outraged  indignation,  we  should  have  been 
less  surprised  than  to  be  told  he  read  it  with  a  delight 
which  spurred  him  to  imitation. 


INFLUENCE    AND    IMITATION  135 

The  Memoires  de  SaintSimon  form  a  historical  mon- 
ument, dominating  and  visible  as  the  pyramids.  Others 
have  laboriously  climbed  its  seventy-two  stories,  sur- 
veyed it,  measured  it,  tested  the  contents;  in  this  place 
it  must  perforce  remain  merely  a  cloudy  bulk  outlined 
against  the  horizon.  Of  the  builder  we  are  told  only  that 
his  youth  was  somewhat  delicate,  that  his  marriage  was 
happy,  and  that  he  was  fond  of  his  father-in-law.  Little 
else  is  written  of  the  personality  of  Saint-Simon 
himself,  whose  aim  is  political  and  historical,  —  in 
fact,  the  notes  were  at  first  intended  to  illuminate 
some  definite  history.  A  certain  picture,  of  course,  is 
gained  of  the  man's  individuality  from  the  extraordinary 
individuality  of  his  work.  One  would  know  much  of 
Gibbon  from  the  Decline  and  Fall,  even  if  there  had 
been  no  autobiography.  Saint-Simon's  passion  for  ques- 
tions of  prerogative  and  for  the  minutiae  of  court  cere- 
monial, shows  us  the  formal  temper  of  his  mind;  while 
the  picture  he  gives  us  of  himself  in  other  small  ways, 
his  biographer,  M.  Gaston  Boissier,  thinks  complete 
and  true.  The  book  is  prefaced  by  an  essay  demon- 
strating his  theory  of  history,  and  showing  his  fear  lest 
persons  or  events  should  be  forgotten  or  misunderstood 
by  the  generations  to  come.  It  was  the  Journal  de  Dan- 
geau  which  gave  the  author  at  once  a  plan  and  a  frame- 
work; Dangeau's  bald,  dated  statements  became  the 
beams  and  joists  of  Saint-Simon's  immense  edifice.  A 
massive  and  complete  structure,  it  is  composed  of  in- 


136  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

numerable  fragments  representing  events  and  portraits. 
No  figure  of  importance  —  of  importance  we  mean  to 
Saint-Simon  —  but  is  carved  upon  its  stones,  in  relief, 
salient,  vivid,  detailed.  Its  fullness  and  thoroughness, 
the  bigness  of  its  plan,  and,  above  all,  its  success,  have 
had  their  influence  on  every  reader  placed  in  like  posi- 
tion. It  became  the  measure  and  the  mould  of  the  later 
court  record. 

D'Argenson  imitates  Saint-Simon  in  minuteness, 
though  his  details  have  never  the  authority  of  his 
model.  In  French  political  life  thereafter,  a  memoir e 
became  almost  one  of  the  conventions  of  a  certain 
eminence;  just  as  a  man  on  a  height  may  be  expected 
to  report  to  those  below  what  he  sees  from  his  position. 
Knowledge  of  human  nature  should  show  us  that  not 
one  of  the  latter-day  political  memoiristes,  be  he  Bar- 
ras,  Guizot,  Marmont,  Metternich,  Pasquier,  Talleyrand 
(to  name  but  few),  sat  down  to  his  work  without  a 
thought  of  the  great  exemplar.  It  is  a  long  walk  from 
Cffisar  to  Talleyrand,  yet  the  path  is  plainly  marked  over 
the  years. 

The  simplest,  the  most  direct  case  of  personal  influ- 
ence and  imitation  has,  naturally,  been  the  first  pre- 
sented, in  the  hope  that  it  may  lead  to  convictions  on 
the  subject  of  influence  in  general.  Proof  in  chapter  and 
verse  is  not  always  forthcoming;  the  subject  himself 
may  be  ignorant  of  an  act  of  imitation  which  seems 
plain  to  the  observer.   Man  is  here  yet  again  the  child 


INFLUENCE   AND    IMITATION  137 

at  play.  Once  the  student  of  these  narratives  has 
come  to  cultivate  a  feeling  for  personal  influences,  dif- 
ficult as  they  may  be  to  analyze  and  define,  there  grows 
up  a  conviction  on  the  whole  subject  that  is  deep  and 
unshakable.    It  is  the  same  as  in  life. 

My  friend  James  meets  and  forms  an  intimacy  with 
my  friend  John.  A  year  later  one  notes,  perhaps  with 
amusement,  perhaps  with  annoyance,  how  the  cham- 
bers of  James's  mind  echo  to  the  sounding  footsteps  of 
John.  One  cannot  pick  out  a  phrase  of  James's  as  bor- 
rowed from  John,  nor  any  special  one  opinion  of  James's 
as  adopted  from  John;  but  one  feels  that  whereas 
James  had  been,  for  instance,  utilitarian,  he  is  becom- 
ing hedonistic;  where  he  was  doubtful  and  qualificative, 
he  is  now  violently  dogmatic;  or  that  whereas  he  for- 
merly denounced  Wesleyanism  or  the  tariff,  he  is  now 
primed  with  too-fluent  argument  in  favor  of  those  be- 
neficent institutions.  Unquestionably,  James  believes 
that  he  has  arrived  at  this  change  of  view  of  his  own 
mind,  or,  at  the  most,  that  talk  with  John  has  only 
modified  his  opinions;  but  his  friends  see  and  hear 
John  throughout  the  temperament  and  mind  of 
James. 

Our  self-biographer  is  James  to  some  former  self-bio- 
grapher John.  Consciously  or  unconsciously,  according 
as  temperament  or  intellect  has  most  submitted  to  the 
influence,  he  will  be  found  in  the  grip  of  his  friend.  His 
denial  matters  nothing;  like  Rousseau,  he  may  protest 


138  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

an  entire  originality.  In  such  cases  one  cannot  point  to 
open  acknowledgment  like  Saint-Simon's  of  Bassom- 
pierre,or  Monluc's  of  Caesar;  yet  one's  conviction  of  that 
influence  remains. 

The  idea  known  in  religious  phrase  as  "  bearing 
testimony  to  the  workings  of  God  "  in  an  individual,  is 
original  with  Augustin.  It  has  never  been  expressed 
with  more  feeling  and  freshness  than  in  his  opening 
chapters.  Repeated,  reiterated  by  ardent  readers  of  the 
Confessions  as  the  reason  urging  them  to  a  like  out- 
pouring, it  is  sometimes  alleged  with  Augustin's  name 
as  avowed  sponsor  to  the  effort,  sometimes  with  the 
sponsorship  only  of  Augustin's  idea.  To  examine  the 
links  of  one  among  many  chains,  it  is  felt  and  present 
in  Guibert,  in  Teresa  and  Huet,  and  so  linked  to  the 
Quietist,  Jeanne  de  la  Mothe-Guyon.  The  extraordi- 
nary likeness  of  Madame  Guyon  in  idea,  in  attitude, 
even  in  phrase  and  expression,  to  the  group  of  English 
Quakers  headed  by  George  Fox,  has  not  passed  unob- 
served by  the  historian  of  religious  movements.  Such 
similarities  have  been  regarded  heretofore  only  in  two 
ways,  either  as  single  isolated  phenomena,  or  as  minor 
and  unimportant  eddies  in  a  large  single  current.  Much 
remains  to  be  done  in  the  study  of  the  personal  forces 
exerted  by  one  individual  upon  another  individual  in 
the  matter  of  reUgious  emotion,  which  the  written  doc- 
ument preserves  and  concentrates.  Of  so  much  power 
is  this  personal  force  that  if  the  conditions  directly 


INFLUENCE   AND    IMITATION  139 

surrounding  it  are  unfavorable,  it  is  apt  to  pass  through 
the  unfavorable  medium  and  to  manifest  itself  at  a 
distance.  This  is  just  what  happened  in  the  case  of 
Madame  Guyon,  as  Quaker  historians  have  pointed 
out.  The  state  of  society  in  France  during  Madame 
Guyon's  career  as  a  religious  reformer,  was  such  as  to 
preclude  any  lasting  impression.  The  sparks  of  incip- 
ient fervor  were  soon  smothered;  all,  that  is,  save  those 
across  the  Channel,  which  fell  upon  tinder  ready  to  leap 
into  flame.  Any  examination  of  the  characteristics  of 
this  movement  belongs  to  another  section,  but  it  should 
be  noted  in  passing  that  the  whole  subject  of  seven- 
teenth century  piety  remains  a  field  rich  in  suggestive 
similarities  and  differences. 

Not  for  an  instant  must  it  be  supposed  that  the  lines 
of  influence  we  have  just  followed  for  the  reader  are 
the  only  ones  springing  from  our  self-student  arche- 
types. It  would  be  more  accurate  to  draw  them  as 
figures  are  drawn  in  antique  missals,  surrounded  by 
rays,  rays  centring  in  the  figure  itself  and  spread- 
ing widely  to  zenith  and  nadir.  The  literature  of  each 
ci\dlized  country  will  be  found  pierced  to  the  heart  by 
one  of  these  rays.  The  Caesar  influence  we  chose  to  ex- 
amine in  France;  it  might  have  been  examined  in  Italy 
with  equally  convincing  results.  The  Augustin  power 
is  transmitted  along  two  main  currents,  separate  and 
distinct.  On  the  one  hand  he  is  a  church  figure,  a 
personality  canonized  and  typically  Roman  Catholic,  a 


140  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

father,  owned  by  the  church  with  a  peculiar  and  filial 
tenderness.  On  the  other  hand,  his  vital  and  indepen- 
dent piety  causes  him  to  be  the  favorite  reading  of  the 
zealot  and  the  reformer.  No  influence  has  been  stronger 
at  the  crucial  moment  of  religious  change  than  Augus- 
tin's;  no  power  is  felt  to  rise  more  freely  above  all 
questions  of  creed  and  sect,  to  work  more  intensely 
upon  the  basic  instincts  of  the  human  soul.  Dissenter, 
Protestant,  Quaker,  have  one  and  all  dreamed  over  his 
Confessions  their  visions  of  an  inspiring  and  enno- 
bling devotion.  Catholic  and  heretic  alike  have  turned 
at  his  voice.  The  extent  of  his  personal  fascination,  ob- 
served through  their  testimony,  would  fill  a  volume  with 
proper  names.  In  the  compass  of  the  present  study  we 
have  sought  to  present  the  example  of  only  one  charac- 
teristic and  typical  manifestation. 

Qualities  which  lead  a  reader  to  imitate  the  historical- 
objective  record,  or  the  religious-subjective  confession, 
are  simpler  and  less  rare  than  those  stimulated  by  a 
scientific  inquiry.  The  personal  influence  of  Jerome 
Cardan,  therefore,  is  more  difficult  to  trace.  The  mere 
possession  of  the  scientific  spirit  causes  a  writer  to  be 
slow  in  acknowledging  personal  influence  in  general. 
Moreover,  in  the  first  two  cases  the  purpose  itself  is 
considered  to  be  sufficient.  Because  Caesar  wrote  com- 
mentaries Monluc  writes  them;  because  Monluc,  Bas- 
sompierre;  because  Bassompierre,  Saint-Simon.  In  the 
same  manner  the  pious  heart  leaps  to  follow  Augustin, 


INFLUENCE   AND    IMITATION  141 

never  doubting  that  fervor  will  supply  all  deficiencies 
of  intellect  or  method. 

No  such  good  intention  will  suffice  for  the  require- 
ments of  scientific  self-study.  A  high  degree  of  imper- 
sonal aloofness,  close  observation,  an  ardent  love  of 
abstract  truth,  —  the  combination  of  such  faculties  is 
rare  at  any  age.  It  was  so  rare  in  Cardan's  day  that  he 
fell  at  once  under  the  suspicion  of  insanity.  Yet  the 
very  men  who  doubted  the  sanity  of  the  De  Vita 
Propria  Liher  were  the  first  to  come  under  its  power. 
On  minds  of  a  certain  calibre,  the  effect  of  this  book  re- 
sembled the  efifect  produced  by  Rousseau  two  hundred 
years  later.  It  provided  an  outlet  for  the  expression  of 
special  prevalent  states  of  thought  and  feeling.  The 
reader  beheld  his  own  chaotic,  inarticulate  feelings 
take  form,  and  move  and  speak.  The  intellectual  and 
learned  man  for  a  hundred  years  following  gained  from 
this  volume  of  Cardan's  an  increased  respect  for  "  the 
divinity,  the  ruling  faculty  within  him." 

The  famous  Huetius,  Bishop  Huet  of  Avranches,  de- 
votes a  part  of  the  last  chapter  of  his  Commentaries 
to  discussing  the  relative  candors  of  Augustin  and  Car- 
dan. Deeply  interesting  it  is  to  see  that  although  the 
first  has  his  affection,  the  method  of  the  second  has  be- 
come his  model.  Similar  acknowledgments  to  the  De 
Vita  Propria  Liber  are  made  by  Dr.  Calamy  and  by 
Richard  Baxter,  but  more  often  we  find  an  imitation 
without  acknowledgment.   The  Cardan  method  is  very 


142  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

marked  in  such  cases  as  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Sir  Sy- 
monds  d'Ewes,  the  lawyer,  and,  rather  later,  John 
Flamsteed,  the  astronomer  royal.  Bayle,  in  his  article 
on  Cardan,  comments  on  the  effect  which  the  "  dernier e 
naivete"  of  this  study  produced  on  contemporary 
minds:  the  fashion  of  Latin  self-biographies  followed 
close  on  Cardan's  heels;  his  friend  Niccolo  Tartaglia, 
the  algebraist,  and  Vesalius,  the  anatomist,  left  much, 
though  inchoate,  autobiographical  matter.  At  the  head 
of  this  later  group  of  self-students  stands  Cardinal  Bel- 
larmin,  who  shows  a  noteworthy  attention  to  physical 
and  mental  details.  Suggestive  also  is  the  tract  by 
Lodovico  Cornaro,  called  Discorsi  delta  Vita  sohria, 
which  made  its  appearance  at  about  the  same  date.  No 
more,  no  less  than  the  exposition  of  Cornaro's  dietary 
theories,  it  shows  at  least  how  such  topics  were  in 
the  air.  Early  in  sixteenth-century  Italy  there  was  a 
strong  wave  of  real  scientific  feeling  and  interest,  affect- 
ing even  natures  wholly  removed  from  it,  like  Cellini. 
There  is  something  in  the  minuteness  of  Cellini's  self- 
examination  which,  however  unconsciously,  serves  to 
display  his  susceptibility  to  the  prevalent  influences. 

Whatever  motives  lay  at  the  bottom  of  Rousseau's 
Confessions,  direct  imitation  was  not  among  them. 
Sincerely  was  he  convinced  that  the  undertaking  was 
entirely  original.  There  is  no  evidence  that  Jean- Jacques 
was  given  to  this  particular  kind  of  reading.  Neverthe- 
less, one  must  believe  that  he  fell  more  or  less  under  the 


INFLUENCE   AND    IMITATION  143 

power  of  an  ebbing  wave,  which,  two  hundred  years  be- 
fore, had  been  set  in  motion  by  the  ItaHan  doctor.  His 
pecuhar  temperament,  so  like  Cardan's  at  many  points, 
responded  quickly  to  the  idea.  His  Confessions 
gave  the  movement  fresh  impetus  and  revitalized  its 
energy.  What  Cardan  had  been  to  vital  natures,  Rous- 
seau became  in  his  turn.  In  England  especially,  where 
no  subjective  work  of  any  value  other  than  the  religious 
had  existed,  it  was  a  revelation.  On  a  nature,  for  in- 
stance, so  deep  and  austere  as  George  Eliot's,  the  effect 
of  Rousseau  was  almost  religious,  and  hers  is  but  one  of 
the  many  cases  which  crowd  the  mind  at  the  mere  men- 
tion of  his  name.  Few  of  these  natures,  however,  have 
paused  to  ask  why  the  effect  upon  them  of  the  Con- 
fessions was  so  crucial;  above  all,  what  quality  linked 
the  work  to  the  avowed  religious  confession.  It  is  not, 
in  any  sense  of  the  word,  a  pious  document.  Rousseau, 
like  Harriet  Martineau,  has  "  snapped  his  chain  and  is 
a  rover  on  the  broad,  bright,  breezy  common  of  the  uni- 
verse." No  stern,  commanding  sense  of  a  personal  God 
moves  through  his  pages;  reading  which,  however,  many 
a  soul  has  quailed  and  cast  a  doubtful  look  behind.  It 
has  been  suggested  that  this  crystallizing  touch  of 
Rousseau's,  this  religious  effect  of  the  Confessions,  is 
due  primarily  to  the  emotion  with  which  they  are  per- 
meated. This  is  the  view  of  the  literary  theorist,  that  a 
common  accent  of  emotion  links  Augustin  and  Rous- 
seau.  But  is  it  emotion  only  which  has  laid  so  powerful 


144  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

a  grip  over  souls  often  past  the  emotional  period  of 
life?  Is  it  not,  rather,  that  Rousseau,  like  Cardan, 
freshly  arouses  the  terror  and  the  mystery  of  person- 
ality? Is  it  not  the  result  of  introspection,  which  brings 
so  deep  an  awe?  The  sensitive  nature  reads  what  this 
man  is,  what  with  unwinking  eyes  he  sees  when  he 
stares  into  the  depths  of  that  clouded  mirror  of  self, 
notes  "  that  invincible  remnant  of  the  brute,"  —  to  use 
George  Eliot's  phrase,  —  feels  irresistibly  dragged  to 
do  the  like,  and  is  afraid.  Terror  at  the  family  likeness 
he  discerns  between  his  own  leash  of  yelping  passions 
and  those  of  the  writer,  —  terror  and  shame  are  the 
first  emotions;  but  they  are  rapidly  put  to  flight  by 
the  uplifting  consciousness  of  renewed  understanding 
and  power,  by  the  inspiration  of  a  high  candor  and 
sincerity. 

Thus  it  would  seem  that  the  most  religious  element  of 
the  religious  confession  is  its  high  quality  of  candor; 
and  the  influence  of  Rousseau  over  the  reverent  mind 
would  seem  to  be  largely  the  influence  of  a  courageous 
candor,  like  tragedy,  purging  the  soul  with  pity  and 
terror.  And  when  the  scientific  self-study  produces  a 
degree  of  serious  candor  approaching,  or  even  surpass- 
ing, the  religious  confession,  its  influence,  like  Cardan, 
like  Rousseau,  is  an  influence  both  enduring  and  intense. 
In  our  own  day,  it  has  made  steadily  for  the  better  psy- 
chological understanding  of  special  cases,  persons,  and 
conditions.   The  whole  of  that  group  of  English  scien- 


INFLUENCE    AND    IMITATION  145 

tists  of  the  nineteenth  century  write  their  lives  with 
the  scientific  intention.  When  we  come  to  examine 
them  as  a  group,  we  shall  note  the  permeating  effect  of 
the  Cardan  intention.  Whether  or  not  we  believe  with 
M.  Bibot  that  "  Cette  manie  de  Tanalyse  personnelle  est 
devenue  de  nos  jours  une  maladie  .  .  .  sous  Tinfluence 
d'un  excitation  nerveuse  excessive,  du  raffinement  intel- 
lectuel  et  de  Tenervement  de  la  volonte";  or,  in  other 
words,  whether  we  believe  the  manifestation  to  be  one  of 
weakness  or  strength,  health  or  disease,  we  see  it  here  in 
possession  of  intellects  indisputably  balanced,  healthy, 
and  strong.  Herbert  Spencer  alleges  practically  the 
same  reason  for  writing  as  Jerome  Cardan:  ''  It  has 
seemed  that  a  natural  history  of  myself  would  be  a 
useful  accompaniment  to  the  books  it  has  been  the 
occupation  of  my  life  to  write."  His  method,  though 
infinitely  more  diffuse,  is  precisely  the  same,  and  his 
two  immense  volumes,  for  thoroughness,  veracity,  and 
scrupulous  minuteness,  form  the  culminating  achieve- 
ment of  scientific  self-delineation.  We  are  too  close  to 
him  now  to  realize  the  value  of  such  a  "natural  history," 
but  coming  generations  will  find  in  its  pages  a  store- 
house of  facts  relative  to  a  great  intellectual  movement 
and  its  effect  on  a  certain  type  of  mind.  The  censure  of 
M.  Ribot,  therefore,  should  never  keep  any  ardent  soul 
from  a  similar  piece  of  work,  if  he  is  moved  to  it  by  a 
genuine  autobiographical  intention. 

Instances  of  personal  influence  along  special  lines  are 


146  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

readily  found  ;  their  study  will  repay  the  curious.  Like 
the  case  of  Saint-Simon  and  Bassompierre,  the  ground 
of  men's  sympathy  is  often  hard  to  hit.  Nothing  is  so 
calculated  to  upset  our  preconceived  notions  of  a  man's 
character  as  a  loiowledge  of  his  friends.  The  sureness, 
the  composure  of  Gibbon  were  to  Mark  Pattison  the 
most  bracing  and  salutary  example;  he  read  the  life, 
he  declares,  a  hundred  times;  it  became  the  very  Bible 
of  his  college  career.  The  greater  case  of  Mill  and 
Marmontel  has  received  much  obtuse  comment,  not 
the  least  of  it  from  the  pen  of  Professor  William  James. 
Facts  show  that  the  extraordinary  education  of  John 
Stuart  Mill  resulted  in  a  reactionary  nervous  condition 
taking  the  form  that  he  believed  himself  incapable  of  feel- 
ing any  emotion  whatever.  During  this  state  of  mind, 
and  in  the  most  prof  ound  depression,  he  read  Marmontel. 
The  literary  quality,  the  accent,  the  delicacy  of  Mar- 
montel's  feeling  not  only  produce  a  volume  of  undying 
felicity  and  charm,  but  serve  to  compensate  the  reader 
for  a  lack  of  some  important  qualities.  Marmontel  was 
a  man  wholly  conventional  and  somewhat  naif;  he  has 
no  sense  of  general  conditions,  no  appreciation  of  the 
trend  of  events;  he  lacks  robustness,  he  lacks  intellec- 
tual manliness.  But  poor  Mill  had  too  much  intellectual 
manliness,  he  had  too  much  of  one  sex;  it  was  the  woman 
in  him  that  had  been  starved  indeed.  The  very  sensi- 
tiveness, the  very  high-pitched  note  of  these  emotional 
pages,  seemed  fresh,  revivifying,  to  the  susceptibilities 


INFLUENCE    AND    IMITATION  147 

of  such  an  one  as  Mill.  He  read  the  wonderful  passage 
which  relates  how  the  young  Marmontel,  hearing  of  his 
father's  death,  rides  back  alone  over  the  mountains  to 
his  farmstead  home,  to  be  received  by  his  young  sisters 
and  his  weeping  mother  as  their  sole  hope;  how  he  is 
braced  under  the  responsibility,  and  how,  a  boy,  all 
overcharged,  he  vows  inwardly  not  to  fail  them,  not  to 
fall  from  the  consecration  of  that  moment.  The  feeling 
and  sincerity,  the  high  accent,  communicated  in  the 
exquisitely  flexible  style,  roused  emotion  in  Mill, 
revived,  inspired  him.  To  us,  reading  with  an  open 
understanding,  the  facts  are  convincing;  and  Professor 
James's  scoff — ''Heaven  save  the  mark!"  —  seems 
both  gratuitous  and  undeserved. 

There  are  other  parts  of  Marmontel  which  have  not 
lost  their  power  to  charm.  Who  can  forget  the  descrip- 
tion of  his  grandmother:  "  Cette  bonne  petite  vieille, 
le  charmant  naturel!  la  douce  et  riante  gaiete!"  or  his 
pleasure  on  seeing  his  baby  take  its  first  steps,  ''  un 
plaisir,"  he  charmingly  avows,  "que  la  bonne  nature  a 
rendu  populaire!"  or  the  little  visit  he  paid  to  Madame 
de  Pompadour,  when  the  great  lady  so  gracefully  differ- 
entiated her  greetings.  Surely  the  Marquise  has  never 
seemed  so  human  and  so  likable,  and  we  know  she  must 
have  had  likable  moments.  Let  us  rejoice  at  our  privi- 
leges, then;  that  with  John  Stuart  Mill  we  too  may 
share  the  friendship  of  Marmontel. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  IN  ITS  RELATION  TO 
FICTION 

The  relation  of  autobiography  to  fiction  has  its  simple 
as  well  as  its  complex  aspects.  On  either  hand  it  lies 
open  to  much  exaggeration.  The  observer,  in  the  first 
heat  of  his  enthusiasm,  is  apt  to  be  tempted  by  striking 
points  of  contact  to  over-emphasize  the  relation  where 
it  exists,  and  to  assume  or  create  one  where  it  does  not. 
It  is  at  no  time  an  easy  matter  to  determine  whether  A 
is  the  immediate  result  of  B,  or  whether  A  and  B  are 
mediately  the  result  of  X.  To  claim  that  the  imaginary 
autobiography  —  Robinson  Crusoe,  let  us  say  —  owes 
its  being  to  some  genuine  autobiography  would  be  to 
claim  far  too  much.  More  exact  would  it  be  to  say  that 
the  *<  I  "  novel  —  a  form  of  narrative  congenial  to  the 
direct  and  fertile  invention  —  owes  to  its  simplicity  its 
predominance  in  earlier  fiction  over  the  more  compli- 
cated forms.  Though  one  cannot  assert  that  Gulliver 
or  Crusoe  was  suggested  to  Defoe  or  Swift  by  some  like 
actual  record  of  travel  and  adventure,  yet  for  the 
novelist  the  suggestiveness  of  the  personal  narrative  goes 
deeper  than  the  reader  is  apt  to  think.  Whole  fashions 
in  fiction  have  followed  some  autobiographical  proto- 
type, and,  as  we  shall  find,  there  are  authors  indebted  to 


ITS    RELATION   TO   FICTION  149 

such  documents  not  merely  for  incidents  but  also  for 
treatment,  for  character,  for  atmosphere. 

The  entire  school  of  roiiiance  dealing  with  crimes  and 
criminals  and  their  detection,  was  directly  the  result  of 
that  group  of  memoires  by  the  French  agents  de  surete,  of 
whom  the  best  known  is  Vidocq.  The  others,  Fouquet, 
Canler,  Claude,  and  so  on,  are  as  full  of  criminal  incidents, 
but  they  lack  both  the  color  and  the  character.  Les 
Miserables  contains  chapters,  scenes,  pages  stamped  by 
Vidocq.  Balzac  acknowledged  that  he  owed  Vautrin 
to  Vidocq;  Charles  Dickens,  less  directly,  went  to  him 
for  Great  Expectations.  The  man  himself  appears  in 
Gaboriau  as  Lecoq,  and  the  fascination  of  his  Memoires 
seized  upon  Poe  in  America  and  Conan  Doyle  in 
England.  Professor  Chandler,  in  his  Literature  of 
Roguery,  gives  full  lists  of  the  minor  cases  following 
this  manner,  though  he  devotes  little  space  to  Eugene 
Vidocq  himself.  Yet  the  man  personally  is  worthy  of 
study;  his  four  volumes  are  not  merely  a  repository  of 
criminal  tales,  but  are  full  of  curious  psychological  data. 
Vidocq  was  himself  a  criminal,  a  thief  turned  thief 
catcher.  He  makes  the  most  for  his  readers  of  the  fact 
that  he  was  innocent  of  that  particular  crime  for  which 
he  was  first  arrested,  but  he  owns  to  forgery,  highway 
robbery,  and  swindling,  indulgently  terming  them  his 
wild  oats.  Let  us  not  be  too  severe  on  him  for  this  atti- 
tude, remembering  what  type  of  sin  the  great  Benjamin 
Franklin  called  errata,  or  that  Father  McCabe  severely 


150  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

reprimands  Augustin  for  exaggerating  such  ''  youthful 
follies  "  as  lying,  stealing,  and  licentiousness.  It  is  hard 
to  please  everybody ;  and  Vidocq  was  successful  enough 
later  in  life  to  afford  to  be  indulgent  toward  these  youth- 
ful offenses.  His  great  natural  intelligence  causes  his 
every  page  to  be  thorough;  and  he  has  a  French  love  of 
form  in  classifying  and  arranging  his  material.  His 
book  is  very  orderly;  he  cites  his  own  misdeeds  as 
necessary  to  its  completeness;  he  was  proud  of  and  took 
pains  with  his  style.  An  immense  vanity  does  not  inter- 
fere with  his  presentation  of  the  facts.  Physically  he 
was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  men,  with  a  tre- 
mendous frame  and  untiring  energy  and  vitality;  men- 
tally his  flashes  of  imagination  show  him  to  have  had, 
at  moments,  powers  much  above  his  task;  yet  he  asked 
for  no  other  in  life,  and  throughout  the  instincts  of 
the  chase  predominate.  His  facial  mobility,  and  his 
mimetic  faculty,  which  Gaboriau  elaborates  in  Lecoq, 
were  genuine  and  extraordinary  possessions.  In  Charles 
Babbage's  Passages  from  the  Life  of  a  Philosopher 
there  is  an  account  of  a  visit  paid  by  the  author  to  Vi- 
docq for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the  extent  of  his 
muscular  and  facial  control.  Babbage,  a  mathematician 
and  the  inventor  of  Babbage 's  Calculating  Machine, 
was  one  of  those  harmless-necessary  persons  with  a 
passion  for  special  information;  he  was  indefatigable  in 
experiment,  —  roasted  himself  in  an  oven,  picked  locks, 
and  deciphered  cryptograms;  —  and  we  have  every  rea- 


ITS    RELATION    TO    FICTION  151 

son  to  rely  upon  his  honesty.  His  description  of  Vidocq 
is  full  and  treats  of  him  as  a  natural  phenomenon.  If 
there  had  been  any  exaggeration  about  the  police 
agent's  ability  to  change  his  face  or  lower  his  height  at 
will,  we  may  be  sure  this  industrious  philosopher  would 
have  found  it  out. 

To  open  Vidocq's  Memoires  for  the  first  time  re- 
calls the  lady  who  found  Hamlet  so  full  of  quotations. 
On  one  page  this  novelist,  on  another  that,  has  mined 
ore  for  his  purpose.  As  the  author  personally  sinks 
rather  out  of  sight  in  the  last  two  volumes,  his  place  is 
filled  by  some  of  the  best  criminal  stories  in  the  world. 
In  this  respect,  though  in  no  other,  he  is  ap- 
proached by  M.  Claude,  who  is  also  a  storehouse  of 
ingenious  plots.  Very  different  from  Vidocq,  of  whom 
he  heartily  disapproves,  M.  Claude  deprecates  the  sensa- 
tional, and  conducts  his  own  criminal  investigations  in 
a  manner  less  brilliant,  though  more  sociological.  His 
accounts  of  Lacenaire  and  Troppmann  are  full  of 
value  as  studies  of  perversion,  and  have  been  so  used 
by  French  criminologists.  And  M,  Claude  is  not  with- 
out his  modest  boast  that  his  book  provided  Eugene 
Sue  with  the  material  for  the  Mysteres  de  Paris. 

If  Vidocq  and  Claude  are  parents  to  a  thankless  brood, 
what  shall  we  say  of  the  eighteenth  century  prisoners, 
Latude  and  Trenck?  Tom  Sawyer  knew  them,  we  re- 
member, but  we  know  only  their  grandchildren.  No 
imprisoned  hero  of  romance,  from  Monte  Cristo  to  the 


152  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

modern  Russian  Kropotkin,  ever  went  through  in  his 
own  person  a  tithe  of  what  befell  these  men.  Compare 
Prince  Kropotkin  in  his  Autobiography  oj  a  Revolu- 
tionist, and  we  see  how,  even  at  its  worst,  the  world 
has  changed.  The  incredible  cruelties  and  brutalities 
told  in  these  two  narratives,  still  hold  poignancy 
for  us  between  the  covers  of  their  dumpy,  little 
brown  volumes.  Of  the  two,  Trenck  is  the  more 
vigorous  and  interesting,  Latude  the  more  human 
and  piteous. 

Frederic  de  Trenck  was  an  impetuous  young  man, 
in  strength  and  physique  a  giant,  whose  vanity  and 
self-confidence  are  sufficient  to  permit  him  to  translate 
this  Histoire  de  mes  Malheurs  from  his  native  Ger- 
man into  excruciatingly  bad  French.  His  impudent 
folly  at  the  outset  gained  him  the  steady  enmity  of 
Frederick  the  Great,  which  was  increased  by  his  mis- 
handling of  his  case.  However  one  may  admire  —  and 
admire  one  must  —  Trenck's  vigor,  ingenuity,  and 
courage;  the  buoyancy  with  which  he  bore  the  weight 
of  sixty-three  pounds  of  chains,  in  a  cell  where  he  could 
hardly  stand  up  or  lie  down;  the  self-control  which 
helped  him  to  preserve  his  reason  during  such  torture; 
the  endurance,  the  patience  with  which  he  tunnelled 
the  earth  over  and  over  again;  yet  one  cannot  help 
feeling  that  all  this  energy  was  wasted  for  the  want  of  a 
little  common  prudence.  To  the  end  he  is  absurdly  cre- 
dulous, a  dupe  of  the  first  comer,  and  continually  losing, 


ITS    RELATION    TO    FICTION  153 

by  some  signal  folly,  the  reward  of  months  of  patient 
labor. 

Poor  Henri  Masers  de  Latude,  on  the  contrary,  was  a 
weakling  in  mind  and  body.  His  vacuous,  giddy,  and 
indiscreet  disposition  makes  the  more  pitiable  his  in- 
credible sufferings.  To  punish  Trenck,  one  could  ima- 
gine, afforded  the  monarch  a  certain  satisfaction;  it  w^as 
like  punishing  a  particularly  stiff-necked  and  vigorous 
boy.  But  in  the  grasp  of  authority,  Latude  seems  like 
some  helpless  and  maimed  animal  which  yet  cannot  die. 
He  is  landed  in  the  Bastille  as  the  result  of  an  idiotic  at- 
tempt at  a  practical  joke  upon  Madame  de  Pompadour, 
—  just  the  sort  of  empty-headed  impertinence  w-hich 
to-day  might  get  the  perpetrator  into  the  station  house 
over  night.  Disorderly  conduct  would  be  the  very  worst 
we  should  call  it;  this  man  paid  for  it  with  the  better 
part  of  his  life.  After  escaping  from  his  first  imprison- 
ment, Latude  conceives  the  brilliant  idea  of  writing  a 
grandiloquent  letter  to  Madame  de  Pompadour  to  tell 
her  where  he  is.  This  amazing  piece  of  foolishness 
leads  at  once  to  his  recapture;  and  thereafter  the  poor 
wretch  spends  thirty-five  years  in  prison  and  in  lunatic 
asylums,  suffering  every  physical  and  mental  torment. 
If  he  had  only  done  something  to  deserve  it,  —  the 
rheumatism,  the  sores,  the  threatened  blindness,  — 
but  he  had  merely  been  guilty  of  an  act  of  impertinence 
toward  a  king's  mistress.  The  story,  as  we  read  page 
after  dreadful  page,  is  like  nothing  so  much  as  watching 


154  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

an  insect  imprisoned  in  a  tumbler,  stupidly,  persistently 
bumping  itself  against  the  impenetrable  glass.  He  is 
so  utterly  weak  and  helpless,  and  he  is  so  indomitably 
persistent.  Like  Trenck,  he  is  capable  of  endless 
ingenuities;  he  manufactures  lamps,  rope  ladders,  etc., 
out  of  food,  clothing,  medicine;  he  goes  beyond  all  that 
was  ascribed  to  the  Abbe  Faria  by  the  imagination  of 
Dumas.  Our  pity  should  not  let  us  forget  that  twice 
his  own  indiscretion  ruined  his  chances  of  release;  and 
one  has  a  distinct  sensation  of  surprise  when  he  is 
finally  set  free,  to  recover  from  the  heirs  of  Madame  de 
Pompadour  compensation  to  support  him  during  the 
rest  of  his  ruined  life. 

Latude  writes  in  a  spirit  of  piercing  bitterness  un- 
known to  Trenck,  who  was  something  of  a  philosopher. 
The  narrative  added  its  drop  of  oil  to  the  inflammable 
feelings  of  the  day.  To  read  it  gives  one  a  shudder,  it 
is  so  clear  a  forerunner  of  revolution.  Just  as  Made- 
moiselle de  Montpensier,  in  her  Memoires,  when  she 
gives  rein  to  her  conscious  and  unconscious  arrogancies, 
causes  us  to  comprehend  as  never  before  the  complete 
and  overwhelming  effronteries  of  her  order,  so  poor 
Latude,  frenzied  with  wrong,  gives  us  a  glimpse  into 
the  mind  of  an  arousing  people,  and  a  glimpse  more 
terrifying  than  can  be  conveyed  by  any  descriptions  of 
les  Noyades,  or  citations  of  Ca  ira!  In  vain  does  fiction 
about  the  French  Revolution  try  to  communicate  that 
thrill.    A  sense  of  unjust,  intolerable  wrongs  and  in- 


ITS    RELATION   TO    FICTION  155 

human  cruelties  was  behind  the  pen  of  Latude,  lashing 
it  on. 

Thus  is  seen  the  fascination  which  is  responsible  for 
the  imprisonment-and-escape  story  from  the  Abbe  Faria 
of  Dumas  to  the  Siberian  exile.  Trenck,  Latude,  Leo- 
nora Christina  in  the  Blue  Tower,  and  that  part  of 
Casanova  describing  his  escape  over  the  leads  of  Venice 
—  no  fiction  on  the  subject  but  has  taken  incidents 
from  these.  Seldom  in  the  twenty-two  volumes  of  me- 
moires  which  Alexandre  Dumas  has  filled  with  anecdote 
and  description,  does  he  mention  the  sources  of  reading 
for  his  novels.  His  own  figure  is  painted  therein  in 
crude,  staring  colors,  as  bright  as  life, —  a  figure  out 
of  Balzac  and  the  Comedie  Humaine.  Part  Napoleonic 
soldier,  part  San  Domingan  negro, —  ye  gods  of  the 
drama,  what  an  heredity!  —  he  seems  to  us  a  savage 
tale-teller,  seated  at  the  camp-fire,  holding  his  com- 
panions breathless.  Alternately  lazy  and  energetic,  sen- 
sual and  shrewd,  he  had  all  the  undiluted  primitive 
forces  of  huge  vitality  and  huge  laughter.  At  twenty, 
he  sets  out,  like  Francis  Bacon,  to  learn  everything,  — 
although  learning,  in  Dumas'  case,  was  the  mere  accumu- 
lation of  material.  In  his  romances,  there  is  the  visual- 
izing power  of  the  narrator,  rather  than  the  lore  of  the 
antiquarian.  One  notes  no  such  careful  research  as  may 
be  found,  for  instance,  in  Flaubert's  Salammbo;  but  how 
much  the  greater  gift  for  seizing,  for  revitaUzing  the 
individualities  of  the  past! 


156  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

A  hint  is  at  any  time  sufficient.  He  hears  the  name 
of  a  neighbor  to  Louise  de  la  Valli^re;  it  is  Bragelonne. 
A  remark  dropped  in  a  letter  is  enough  for  the  lively 
sketch  of  Mademoiselle  de  Montalais.  And  there  is  also 
the  power  of  dramatizing  the  fact.  Take  the  different 
versions  of  that  protest  uttered  to  Louis  XIV  by  the 
exasperated  Marie  de  Mancini.  It  occurs  in  Madame 
de  Motteville,  and  in  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier,  and 
Marie  repeats  it  in  her  own  memoire,  La  Verite  dans 
son  Jour.  The  words  she  probably  said  were:  "  Vous 
pleurez,  sire;  vous  etes  un  roi,  et  pourtant  vous  souffrez 
que  je  parte!  "  The  novel  reader  feels  that  what  she 
should  have  said,  taking  the  centre  of  the  stage  with  a 
noble  gesture  of  despair,  are  the  ten  words  written  for 
her  by  Dumas:  **  Sire,  vous  etes  un  roi  —  vous  pleurez 
—  et  je  pars!  " 

What  hour  found  Dumas  with  the  Memoires  of  Bussy- 
Rabutin  in  his  hand,  finding  in  the  real  man  flesh  and 
blood  wherewith  to  clothe  the  puppets  of  Courtilz  de 
Sandraz?  Whether  Dumas  knew  that  the  Memoires 
de  M.  d'  Artagnan,  from  which  he  frankly  took  his 
Musketeers,  was  a  spurious  document,  and  as  much  fic- 
tion as  his  own,  will  ever  remain  in  doubt.  He  mentions 
the  book  in  the  same  tone  as  Mr.  Rider  Haggard  prints 
the  sherd  of  Amenartas  and  the  edifying  inscription 
in  Greek  uncials,  to  prop  the  simple  and  probable  story 
of  She.  Dumas  uses  the  reference  as  a  technical 
novelist's  convention;  and  it  is  true  that  nine  people  out 


ITS    RELATION   TO    FICTION  157 

of  ten  take  it  as  such,  and  have  not  the  faintest  behef 
that  such  a  memoire  ever  existed.  The  curious  fact  is 
that  it  did  exist.  The  Memoir es  of  M.  d^Artagnan,  by 
Gatien  Courtilz  de  Sandraz  et  de  Verge,  published  in 
Amsterdam,  in  three  volumes,  about  1702,  contain  not 
only  Dumas's  main  incidents,  but  the  names  of  his  chief 
characters  —  Athos,  Porthos,  Aramis,  Treville,  Berna- 
joux,  de  Wardes,  Milady,  —  and  most  of  his  narra- 
tive to  boot.  Also,  it  is  the  dullest  book  ever  written, 
dry,  juiceless,  limp;  quite  as  much  of  a  contrast  to  the 
novel  we  love  as  Hamhlet  is  to  Hamlet. 

There  is  an  irony  in  the  circumstance,  however,  that 
fate  should  so  serve  de  Sandraz  —  himself  a  trucqueur 
of  an  earlier  date  —  that  his  work  should  finally  be 
ground  up  in  the  Maison  A.  Dumas  et  Compagnie. 
Yet  Dumas  may  have  believed  the  Memoires  were  gen- 
uine. Saint-Simon  believed  it ;  and  it  does  appear  to  be 
true  that  the  real  Captain  d'Artagnan  —  amazed  and 
innocent  protagonist !  —  was  killed  before  Maestricht 
in  1673.  When  the  subject  was  first  under  discussion, 
Victor  Hugo  claimed  to  prefer  Courtilz  de  Sandraz  to 
Dumas;  but  he  stands  alone  in  this,  and  even  he  ac- 
knowledges that  Dumas  could  have  done  little  with  the 
book  but  for  other  contemporary  documents,  such  as 
Bussy,  for  instance. 

For  Bussy's  Memoires  is  another  work  full  of  quota- 
tions; he  is  three  muskeeters  rolled  into  one,  or,  rather, 
perhaps,  not  imrolled  into  three.   Intellect  and  vindic- 


158  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tiveness,  those  two  main  qualities  of  the  man  Bussy, 
were  inconvenient  to  Dumas  in  constructing  his  heroes 
of  romance.  Those  of  us  who  know  and  love  Madame 
de  S^vigne  have  not  forgotten  that  Bussy  was  her  cousin; 
that  he  wrote  her  ardent  love  letters  and  received 
charmingly  playful  and  reserved  replies.  Neither  have 
they  forgotten  that  when  this  honest  wife  repulsed  him, 
her  kinsman  and  playmate  did  not  disdain  the  most 
spiteful  and  calumnious  reprisals.  Ungentlemanly  con- 
duct this,  according  to  our  standards;  but  even  the  good 
Corbinelli  thought  Madame  de  Sevigne  virtuous  to  the 
point  of  affectation  for  spurning  her  attractive  cousin. 
Well-born,  handsome,  rich  till  debt  engulfed  him,  was 
Bussy;  gallant  soldier,  humorist,  and  cynic;  poor  friend, 
worse  enemy.  But,  through  all  his  amazing  verve,  one 
feels  the  presence  of  intellect.  He  was  important 
enough  in  learned  circles  to  have  his  name  Latinized 
into  Bussius  by  the  Rev.  Edmund  Calamy,  that  Mr. 
Collins  of  the  theological  world.  Dr.  Calamy  speaks 
of  the  memoirs  only  by  hearsay.  Had  he  read  them,  one 
fears  he  might  have  denied  our  lively  friend  the  dignity 
and  solace  of  a  Latin  termination.  Personally  one  loves 
and  respects  Dr.  Calamy ;  but  the  thought  of  his  reading 
Bussy ^s  account  of  that  journey  with  the  Countess  de 
Busset  ''en  d^shabill^  fort  galant"  is  enough  to  extin- 
guish the  most  dignified  in  a  gust  of  laughter. 

Bussy  had  definite  ideals.  "Lorsque  j'entrai  dans  le 
monde,"  he  asserts,  "ma  premiere  et  ma  plus  forte  in- 


ITS    RELATION   TO    FICTION  159 

clination  fut  de  devenir  honnete  homme,  et  de  parvenir 
aux  grands  honneurs  de  la  guerre."  And  he  explains 
further,  in  a  letter  to  Corbinelli:  ''L'honnete  homme  est 
un  homme  poll,  et  qui  salt  vivre."  This  definition  of 
honesty  is  extremely  modern;  it  satisfies  many  persons 
engaged  in  the  financial  operations  of  the  present  day. 
Bussy  himself  did  not  live  up  to  it.  His  tongue  was 
venomous,  and  on  the  altar  of  Democritus  he  sacrificed 
everything  in  life.  He  could  never  resist  the  temptation 
to  be  witty.  His  satire  UHistoire  Ainoureuse  des 
Gaules  landed  him  in  prison;  his  epigrams  stung  on 
every  side,  hurting  enemies  and  friends  impartially,  like 
a  swarm  of  bees.  He  knew  it  was  said  of  him  "que 
j'^tais  I'homme  du  monde  le  plus  medisant,"  and  he 
knew  it  to  be  true. 

The  vitality,  the  humanity  of  the  musketeers  when 
compared  with  the  beaux  tenebreux  of  Scott,  —  with 
Ivanhoe  or  Nigel,  —  is  far  better  understood  when  one 
considers  the  remarkable  personal  pictures  which  stood 
ready  to  the  French  novelist's  hand.  Could  he  possibly 
invent  a  character  at  once  so  gallant  and  so  giddy  as 
Bassompierre?  In  the  marshal,  and  to  a  still  greater  ex- 
tent in  Bussy,  the  humorous  hero  stands  clearly  forth. 
The  dash,  the  audacity,  the  courage  and  gayety,  the 
high-handedness,  the  irresistible  impertinences,  are  all 
here  as  in  life.  A  thread  of  narrative,  and  it  is  done.  At 
certain  moments  the  very  manner  is  Dumas'.  During  a 
journey  Bussy  stops  overnight  in  a  castle  where  there 


160  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

was  a  ghost.  *'Moi,  qui  les  crains,  sans  les  croire/'  he 
says,  "je  me  mettaisla  tetesousla  couverture  .  .  .pour 
m'oter  les  moyens  de  rien  entendre  qui  put  me  faire 
peur."  Here  is  Porthos-Bussy ;  while  as  for  d'Artagnan- 
Bussy,  there  is  the  journey  above  mentioned,  which  Dr. 
Calamy  has  not  read,  unless  such  reading  is  permitted 
him  in  his  present  place  of  residence.  It  is  indeed  a  jolly 
story,  though  too  long  and  too  medisant  to  quote  here;  but 
the  echoes  of  its  laughter  ring  down  the  scandalized  years. 

The  huge  laughter  of  the  musketeers  was  caught  from 
the  pages  of  Messire  Bussy.  "  Nous  nous  abandonnames 
aux  eclats  de  rire;  —  nous  eussions  ri  jusqu'aux  larmes; 
—  c'etait  un  rire  a  deux  mains,"  are  not  these  all  but 
the  very  Dumas  phrases?  But  Bussy 's  humor  held 
wit  and  observation  besides  the  gift  of  laughter.  It  is 
hard  to  understand  why  Mr.  Van  Laun,  in  the  French 
Literature,  calls  him  a  dull  man  and  thinks  his  wit  pro- 
bably exaggerated.*  The  Memoires  display  many  un- 
desirable qualities,  but  they  are  not  dull.  On  occasion, 
the  author  can  be  d'Artagnan  tout  pur.  ''Je  baisois 
quelquefois  la  comtesse  devant  la  gouvernante,  qui  ne 
faisoit  pas  semblant  de  le  voir,  parce  que  je  la  baisois 
aussi,  tant  il  est  vrai,"  says  Bussy-d'Artagnan  slyly, 
*'qu'il  n'y'a  qu'a  int^resser  les  gens  pour  leur  faire 
oublier  leur  devoir!" 

One  last  citation.  These  are  questions,  says  the  out- 
raged reader  of  romance,  of  picturesque  character  or 
^  H.  Van  Laun,  "French  Literature,"  II,  p.  262. 


ITS    RELATION   TO    FICTION  161 

suggestive  environment;  the  accent  of  the  creative  art- 
ist is  lacking  in  them.  From  what  Dumas  novel,  excel- 
lent sir,  comes  the  following?  The  hero  says  to  Louis 
XIII,  on  the  eve  of  a  skirmish:  — 

"  *■  Sire,  Tassemblee  est  prete,  les  violons  sont  entres, 
et  les  masques  sont  a  la  porte.  Quand  il  plaira  a  votre 
Majeste  nous  donnerons  le  ballet?  ' 

*'  II  s'approcha  de  moi  et  me  dit  en  colere:  — '  Savez- 
vous  que  nous  n'avons  que  cinq-cent  livres  de  plomb 
dans  le  pare  d'artillerie?  '     Je  lui  dis:  — 

^' '  II  est  bien  temps  maintenant  de  penser  ^  cel^! 
Faut-il  que  pour  un  des  masques  qui  n'est  pas  pret,  le 
ballet  ne  se  danse  pas?  '  " 

It  occurs  on  page  192,  volume  II,  of  Bassompierre's 
Memoires.  Good  reader,  if  you  have  already  made 
the  acquaintance  of  these  fair  ladies  and  gallant  gentle- 
men, you  will  like  me  no  less  for  loving  them.  But  if  not, 
wait  no  longer,  I  pray  you,  but  send  at  once  for  Mar- 
guerite de  Valois,  for  the  intriguing  de  Retz,  for  Bassom- 
pierre,  for  Bussy,  —  above  all,  for  Bussy,  —  to  renew 
your  acquaintance  with  the  musketeers.  If  you  are 
scrupulous  on  the  score  of  morals,  he  will  reassure  you : 
"J^avais  toujours  eu  un  fonds  de  religion,  et  une  devo- 
tion particuliere  a  la  sainte  Vierge."  And  he  ends  with 
a  little  philosophic  quatrain :  — 

"Etre  satisfait  de  son  sort, 
Quel  qu'il  soit  ne  s'en  jamais  plaindre, 
Et  regarder  venir  la  mort 
Sans  la  d^sirer  ni  la  craindre." 


162  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Plain  to  be  seen  then,  is  the  influence  of  the  personal 
record  on  Dumas  and  the  novel  of  adventure,  on  the 
crime-and-detection  story,  and  on  the  imprisonment- 
and-escape  story.  Later  modern  instances  show  that  it 
has  not  lost  its  power.  Mrs.  Ward's  Lady  Rosens 
Daughter  revived  interest  in  her  prototype,  Made- 
moiselle de  I'Espinasse;  but  the  reader  of  Marmontel 
knew  that  it  was  not  the  letters  alone  which  had  in- 
spired the  novelist's  creation.  The  few  pages  wherein 
Marmontel  paints  that  central  scene  —  central  in  the 
life  of  the  real  as  of  the  fictitious  Julie  —  stand  out 
clear,  graphic,  obviously  tempting  to  the  strong  and 
adequate  hand.  The  incident  is  not  one  in  which  Mar- 
montel himself  figures,  nor  is  the  suggestion  the  result 
of  a  total  personal  impression,  like  Bussy  or  Bassom- 
pierre.  It  is  contributed  by  the  way,  a  gift,  a  friendly 
gift  of  the  memoiriste.  Sometimes  our  friend's  character 
is  of  value  to  us,  sometimes  his  surroundings  or  his 
conversation.  To  the  romancer  there  often  is  suggestion 
merely  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  past.  Did  Scott  read 
Ousama  ib'n  Mounkidh,  we  wonder,  that  he  draws  so 
sympathetically,  in  The  Talisman,  the  attitude  of  the 
Syrian  emir  toward  the  barbarous,  crusading  Frank? 
The  effect  of  those  great  Italian  eighteenth  century 
autobiographers,  Alfieri,  Gozzi,  Goldoni,  Casanova,  on 
the  fiction  and  description  dealing  with  their  country, 
is  almost  too  wide  to  be  comprehended  in  one  essay. 

Lord  Byron  thought  Goldoni's  autobiography  the 


ITS    RELATION   TO    FICTION  163 

best  in  the  world.  Goethe  enjoyed  it  —  it  is,  indeed,  a 
Bort  of  Italian  Wilhelm  Meister,  Carlo  Goldoni  typi- 
fies for  us  the  Venetian  of  literature.  "  I  was  bom  in 
this  racket,"  ^  he  says.  "Could  I  help  loving  gay- 
ety?"  Talkative,  busy ,  industrious,  and  merry,  he  takes 
life  with  a  smile  and  a  shrug.  He  smiles  always;  indeed, 
he  declares  that  he  came  into  the  world  without  crying. 
Like  Wilhelm,  he  starts  with  a  stock  of  illusions  and 
in  company  with  a  troupe  of  wandering  players;  like 
Wilhelm,  he  parts  with  his  illusions  during  his  travels, 
but,  unlike  him,  the  readjustment  is  accomplished  with- 
out any  shock  or  bitterness.  Vernon  Lee  calls  him  a 
*' cheery,  flighty  little  man,"  and  thinks  that  "  all  his 
emotions  and  impressions  have  the  levity,  the  good- 
natured  simplicity  of  his  work  —  the  same  light-hearted 
imperturbable  slipperiness."  To  us,  Goldoni  seems  more 
mercurial  than  slippery.  Never  a  dissipated  man,  he 
takes  certain  vices  for  granted;  his  Latin  romanticism  in 
love  goes  hand  in  hand  with  a  Latin  canniness  when  it 
comes  to  marriage.  On  this  subject  the  most  ''freddo 
Inglese"  appears  madly  imprudent  by  comparison.  A 
match  is  arranged  for  the  youthful  Carlo,  but  when  he 
sees  the  lady  he  comments  thus :  — 

"She  was  one  of  those  delicate  beauties  whom  the 

very  air  injures,  and  whom  the  smallest  fatigue  or 

pain  discomposes."   When  he  adds  to  this  that  her 

elder  sister  had  become  ugly  after  the  birth  of  a  child,  he 

^  "Questo  strepito." 


164  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

considers  it  prudent  to  rupture  the  negotiations.  In 
a  second  matrimonial  arrangement  the  dot  appears 
to  be  less  than  was  first  supposed,  and  so  Goldoni 
leaves  Venice  in  high  dudgeon,  his  comedy  in  his 
pocket. 

When  he  does  marry,  he  finds  his  wife  sensible  and 
complaisant.  ''I  shared  my  pleasures  with  her:  she 
followed  me  everywhere.  The  only  place  she  did  not 
accompany  me  was  to  my  mistress.  She  did  not 
hinder  me  from  going,  but  this  actress  was  not  to  her 
taste,  and  there  is  no  disputing  taste.''  There  is  a  plea- 
sant insouciance  about  this.  "I  knew  her  docility;  I 
owed  her  esteem  and  friendship."  And,  toward  his 
later  years,  settled  in  Paris,  he  is  serenely  content  in  her 
company.  We  see  him  taking  his  well-earned  ease,  if  not 
the  lean,  at  least  the  slippered  pantaloon.  "I  am  of  a 
pacific  disposition,"  his  last  sentence  declares;  "I  have 
always  preserved  my  coolness  of  character:  at  my  age  I 
read  little,  and  I  read  only  amusing  books."  It  is  a 
peaceful,  elderly  philosophy.  Yet  Goldoni  had  his 
serious,  his  austere  side.  He  had  theories  of  art  in 
advance  of  his  day;  he  shows  deep  interest  in  science 
and  in  scientific  discoveries.  His  fecundity,  vivacity, 
and  industry  were  amazing.  In  one  year  he  wrote 
sixteen  comedies.  Of  course,  we  think  of  Mr.  Vincent 
Crummies  and  the  washtubs,  but  let  us  not  mistake. 
Goldoni  wrote  better  Italian  than  the  English  of  most 
of  our  one-comedy-a-year  playwrights.    Each  one  of 


ITS   RELATION   TO   FICTION  165 

the  sixteen  comedies  had  a  definite,  if  slender,  plot  and 
clearly  delineated  characters.  There  was  no  machinery- 
necessary,  he  says,  but  to  sit  down  with  his  scenario, 
and  then  merrily,  copiously,  the  dialogue  flowed  on.  It 
is  all  gay  and  busy  and  unvexed,  like  his  life.  One  is 
glad  he  died  just  as  the  French  Revolution  came  to 
cloud  that  golden  sunset.  The  far  gleam  from  these 
pages  shines  athwart  many  novels  which  have  tried  to 
catch  and  hold  its  radiance.  To  work,  to  laugh,  to  live 
always  next  the  earth  and  in  sunny  weather,  seems  his 
prerogative.  We  have  read  such  lives,  ''in  earlier  Sicil- 
ian/' but  this  is  almost  the  last. 

If  Goldoni  is  of  the  country,  Gozzi  is  of  the  town. 
Goldoni  tramps  from  village  to  village,  sharing  his  last 
half -bottle  with  the  soubrette.  Count  Gozzi,  "a  tall, 
gaunt  man  in  his  old-fashioned  clothes,"  as  Vernon  Lee 
describes  him,  remains  in  Venice,  immersed  in  legal 
affairs  and  in  the  theatre,  where  he  was  Goldoni's  rival. 
His  book  is  exceedingly  rare  in  the  original,  so  rare 
that  J.  Addington  Symonds,  the  translator,  says  he 
had  to  hunt  for  four  months  to  procure  a  single  copy. 
Gozzi  himself  termed  them  Useless  memoirs,  published 
from  humility,  yet  he  must  have  realized  that  they 
were  a  useful  and  interesting  commentary  on  Venetian 
life. 

The  author  is  a  poor  gentleman,  the  comte  of  a  de- 
caying house.  His  shrewdness  and  energy  could  accom- 
plish nothing  in  a  family  where  there  was  no  money,  and 


166  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

eleven  idle  children.  The  financial  difficulties  of  the 
Gozzis,  their  quarrels,  their  lawsuits,  would  delight 
Balzac.  Our  author  is  caustically  frank  in  describing 
his  relatives,  and  he  had  personally  a  certain  business 
acumen.  But  literature  was  his  passion;  here,  and  here 
only,  he  displays  enthusiasm.  On  the  subject  of  his 
own  performances  he  is  fond  of  telling  us  how  he  never 
accepted  payment;  and  rather  maintains  the  attitude 
that  "he  handles  his  pen  with  the  negligent  ease  of  a  man 
of  quality."  Gozzi  is  not  simple  and  direct  like  his 
countryman,  Goldoni;  he  is  cool,  aloof,  ironical,  modern. 
Vernon  Lee's  further  picture  of  him,  ''always  silent, 
self-absorbed  —  kindly  idle,  half-crazy,  a  poet  and  a 
humorist,  an  aristocrat  and  a  dreamer"  —  hardly  tallies 
with  his  description  of  himself  as  a  brisk  and  competent 
man  of  the  world.  He  may  have  been  a  dreamer,  but 
he  was  not  romantic.  Women  hardly  came  into  his  life. 
*'I  regarded  the  sex  with  the  eyes  of  a  philosopher," 
and  ''matrimony  was  wholly  alien  to  my  views  of 
liberty,"  he  asserts.  But  he  loved  the  life  of  the  place,  of 
the  coulisse  and  the  cafe,  the  intrigue,  —  its  success  or 
failure,  —  the  little  supper,  the  little  satire,  the  idle 
crowd  that  applauded  or  hissed,  the  life  of  buzzing 
engagements,  like  banging  doors, —  of  small  things  in 
a  miniature  metropolis. 

Gozzi's  humor  is  a  thing  apart;  it  is  so  cynical  and  ir- 
reverent, it  is  almost  American.  After  a  quarrel  with  his 
mother,  he  left  her  presence  with  "hilarity"  and,  taking 


ITS    RELATION   TO    FICTION  167 

his  younger  brother,  quits  home  forever,  quoting  ''E 
quindi  uscimmo  a  riveder  le  stelle !  "  What  he  calls  ''my 
habitual  philosophy  of  laughter"  never  fails  him.  It 
stands  his  friend  in  bitter  disputes,  in  unfriendly  de- 
sertions; it  colors  his  feelings,  even  when  they  seem 
to  be  most  warmly  aroused.  These  two  men,  Goldoni 
and  Gozzi,  supplementing  one  another,  bring  before  us 
vividly  that  decaying,  pre-monarchical  Italy,  and  in 
so  doing  they  assume  the  parentage  of  the  Italy  of 
fiction.  Without  them,  its  hundred  private  aspects  must 
have  remained  unknown.  In  the  details,  in  the  small, 
clear,  sunny  glimpses,  the  comedians  lunching  in  that 
slow  canal  boat  on  the  Brenta,  which  Goldoni  called  a 
Noah's  ark;  Gozzi  in  the  dressing-room  of  the  Ricci,  or 
hurrying  in  his  gondola  to  the  play,  sword  in  hand,  — 
there  is  the  novel  in  embryo.  History  cannot  do  this; 
it  is  the  place  and  privilege  of  such  books  as  these.  But, 
like  history,  here  are  canvases  so  broad  that  the  question 
is  more  of  a  whole  communicated  feeling  for  a  special 
place  and  epoch,  than  of  any  one  particular  incident. 
Mrs.  Wharton's  Valley  of  Decision  has  caught  the 
mood,  has  been  pieced  together,  as  it  were,  out  of  bits  of 
foreground;  the  effect,  however  careful,  has  been,  as  the 
Italians  would  themselves  put  it,  troppo  studiato.  It 
is  an  example,  however,  ready  at  hand  to  show  that 
fascination  is  still  potent. 

As  a  final  token  of  how  slight  a  suggestion  may  serve 
the  creative  impulse,  providing  the  accent  is  high,  one 


168  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

may  re-read  Erasmus's  autobiographical  letter  concern- 
ing the  tragedy  of  his  parents.  It  is  brief,  bald,  poign- 
antly intense;  and  the  quiver  of  that  intensity  has 
remained  with  Charles  Reade  through  the  many  and 
chaotic  pages  of  The  Cloister  and  the  Hearth, 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL  GROUP 

In  the  two  foregoing  sections  we  have  dealt  with  the 
personal  narrative  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  indivi- 
dual appeal  to  the  mind  or  dramatic  sense  of  the  novel- 
ist. Inevitably,  documents  of  this  kind  must  have  a 
peculiar  value  for  him,  since  they  permit  him  to  en- 
large both  his  extensive  and  intensive  experience.  In 
life,  this  has  ever  been  a  temptation  to  the  creative 
nature,  which  forgets  it  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  and 
foredoomed  to  failure.  No  one  can  forget  that  picture 
of  Lucien  de  Rubempre  at  the  door  of  the  greenroom, 
urging  himself  forward  on  the  first  frivolous  steps  by 
the  thought  '*  un  homme  qui  veut  tout  peindre,  doit  tout 
connaitre."  And  yet  never  was  the  falsity  of  this  idea 
better  shown  than  in  the  case  of  Lucien's  creator  him- 
self; for  the  contrast  between  the  amazing  diversity  of 
Balzac's  canvas,  and  the  narrow  and  relatively  austere 
course  of  his  daily  life,  remains  the  enigma  for  his 
critics.  Indeed,  the  novelist  in  his  proper  person  finds 
himself  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that  emotion  cannot 
with  most  of  us  be  at  once  deep  and  wide,  that  one  is 
apt  to  pay  for  extensive  experience  by  loss  of  intensive 
experience,  and  that,  therefore,  he  must  come  the  most 
to  rely  upon  his  observation  and  imagination.   Armed 


170  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

with  these  tools,  he  freely  turns  to  use  the  written 
records  of  the  experiences  of  others.  Gauged  by  the 
autobiographical  intention,  they  are  placed  in  a  proper 
perspective  for  the  reader;  so  their  full  suggestiveness 
is  retained  while  their  trustworthiness  is  increased. 
The  novelist  finds  his  store  enriched,  not  merely  in 
respect  of  incident  and  atmosphere,  but  by  the  inter- 
play of  character  upon  character,  and  by  a  closer  view 
of  those  illuminating  inconsistencies  which  display  the 
richness  and  complexity  of  human  nature.  Moreover, 
there  is  borne  in  upon  the  open-minded  reader  of  these 
documents  a  sense  of  the  seriousness  and  importance  of 
them  as  pieces  of  life;  he  begins  to  see  that,  however 
immense  the  diversity  of  individuality,  it  is  weighted 
and  underlaid,  like  everything  else  in  nature,  with  cer- 
tain principles  of  law.  He  is  able  to  observe  some  of 
those  principles  in  operation,  to  gain  a  perspective 
which  he  could  never  obtain  from  actual  experience. 
He  begins  to  realize  why  his  honest,  strenuous  efforts 
have  produced  but  cheap  and  one-sided  effects,  beside 
the  unconscious  and  effortless  play  of  genius  over  the 
subject.  He  sees  why  these  intelligences  of  the  past, 
with  their  large  reading,  their  wide,  imaginative  hori- 
zons, and  their  comparatively  narrow,  personal  experi- 
ence, accomplished  such  infinitely  greater  things  than 
Mr.  Jones,  who  conscientiously  toured  Labrador  and 
boiled  his  moccasins  for  his  new  book;  or  Mr.  Smith, 
who  spent  three  years  studying  in  the  slums  for  his. 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        171 

The  acquaintance  of  Samuel  Richardson  with  females 
of  the  class  of  Mrs.  Jukes  was,  quite  probably,  nil ;  yet 
there  she  is;  and  where,  in  Heaven's  name,  is  the  pro- 
curess, studied  mth  microscope  or  kodak,  of  the  ardent 
and  reformative  Smith?  The  would-be  novelist,  there- 
fore, realizing  that  his  first  effort  must  be  to  understand 
the  laws  of,  and  to  obtain  data  upon,  human  nature, 
realizes  also  that  this  is  hugely  more  difl5.cult,  if  not 
impossible,  when  he  walks  on  the  same  level  with  his 
subject,  —  he  cannot  see  the  wood  for  the  trees.  He 
must,  therefore,  do  as  the  great  have  done,  raise  himself 
above  the  level  of  swarming  thousands,  and  apply  him- 
self to  the  study  of  generalities,  and  to  the  observation 
of  highly-colored  and  quintessential  types.  Does  he  de- 
sire, for  instance,  to  understand  the  working  of  poverty 
on  the  youthful  spirit?  It  is  painted  for  him  by  Anthony 
Trollope,  by  Thomas  Platter.  Is  his  theme  the  arro- 
gance of  the  aristocrat?  He  turns  to  the  pages  of 
Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier,  of  Bassompierre,  of 
Marguerite  de  Valois.  Does  he  intend  to  depict  "the 
dehghts  and  killing  agonies"  of  the  artist  struggling  on- 
ward? He  reads  the  self -portrayals  of  Cellini,  Hay  don, 
Giovanni  Dupr^.  Every  shade  of  religious  feeling  and 
influence,  from  the  thirteenth  century  naivetes  of 
Salimbene  to  the  refined,  intellectual  austerities  of  a 
MiU  or  a  Martineau,  has  in  these  documents  been 
made  the  subject  of  analysis  and  portrayal.  Hate, 
envy,  affection,   and  devotion,  the  abnormal  nature 


172  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

bent  and  twisted,  the  normal  nature  healthily  blossom- 
ing to  fruition,  —  all  such  experiences  furnish  reliable 
material  on  which  the  creative  intelligence  may  work. 
But  the  personal  record  has  an  effect  on  literature  far 
wider  than  can  be  conveyed  by  describing  detached  in- 
dividual cases,  and  the  novel  or  novels  which  they  may 
have  inspired.  As  nuclei  of  certain  past  social  energies, 
regarded  not  individually  but  in  groups,  they  show  the 
prevailing  tones  and  predominating  influences  of  their 
time.  Once  more,  as  in  the  question  of  sincerity,  it  is  not 
the  special  instance  which  should  be  considered,  but  the 
weight  of  aggregate  instances.  One  statement  here,  one 
impression  there,  means  nothing;  but  the  body  of  like- 
ness or  unlikeness  contained  in  a  contemporaneous 
group  of  autobiographies  must  show  the  main  tenden- 
cies of  the  society  by  which  the  group  was  surrounded. 
Pages  have  been  and  are  each  day  being  written  — 
pages  of  inquiry  and  speculation  —  as  to  the  rise  of  lit- 
erary and  social  movements,  and  as  to  the  presence  or 
absence  of  certain  mental  and  moral  conditions  in  the 
society  of  the  past;  as  to  when,  where,  how,  the  great 
determining  forces  began  to  work  the  changes  of  the 
world.  Passing  reference  is  made,  perchance,  to  letter 
or  journal  or  memoire;  not  yet  has  there  been  un- 
dertaken any  such  simple  and  concrete  expedient  as 
the  comparative  examination  of  contemporary  memoir 
groups,  and  of  their  testimony,  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious, on  the  subject  in  hand.    Far  too  wide  is  such 


THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        173 

examination  for  the  confines  of  this  essay.  It  is  a  study 
so  fruitful  that  it  might  well  fill  a  separate  volume.  But 
we  may  profitably  linger  over  two  of  its  main  aspects 
here,  because  they  bear  directly  on  certain  individual 
cases  later  to  be  considered. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  study  of  a  group  of  individuals 
will  provide  correctives  for  the  study  of  any  one  among 
those  individuals.  Each  human  being  rotates  upon  his 
own  axis,  if  we  wish  to  put  it  so,  —  rises  and  sets  large 
upon  the  horizon,  exercises  his  attraction,  in  greater  or 
less  degree,  upon  the  other  bodies  which  come  within 
his  influence.  Change  the  point  of  view,  and  he  be- 
comes an  infinitesimal  unit  in  a  vast  aggregate  of  units, 
sharing  the  main  characteristics  of  the  aggregate,  and 
with  personal  idiosyncrasies  which  seem  but  microsco- 
pical. The  metaphor  is  not  here  intended  to  minimize 
the  importance  of  the  individual.  The  sun  will  always 
remain  to  us  the  most  important  of  solar  bodies,  how- 
ever often  we  strive  to  realize  its  relation  to  a  universe 
inconceivably  vast.  But  it  is  also  true  that  we  increase 
our  knowledge  of  the  sun  when  we  study  it  as  one  in  a 
group  of  flaming  stars. 

An  autobiography  is  apt  to  contain  much  material 
which  standing  by  itself  would  seem  to  show  the  writer 
abnormal;  an  impression  which  may  be  changed  or  dis- 
pelled by  comparison  with  another  case  of  the  same  con- 
temporary group.  Such  over-emphasized  impressions 
may  persist  through  several  generations,  for  the  want  of 


174  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPir5f 

some  simple  expedient  like  this  comparison.  For  in- 
stance, when  we  read  of  them  singly,  the  superstitions 
of  Cellini,  the  artist,  and  of  Cardan,  the  mathematician, 
strike  us  as  bearing  a  most  disproportionate  relation  to 
their  other  qualities.  At  the  age  of  three,  Cellini  sees  a 
salamander;  later  he  raises  the  devil  in  person  in  the 
Coliseum.  The  visions,  the  omens,  the  supernatural 
experiences  of  Cardan,  require  a  chapter  to  themselves. 
But  the  impression  of  individual  abnormality  vanishes 
when  we  compare  the  two  as  contemporaries;  when  we 
realize  that  the  existence  of  a  similar  degree  of  credu- 
lity in  men  so  representative  and  so  different,  means, 
simply,  its  prevalence  in  their  society  to  a  degree  which 
has  not  previously  been  understood.  The  most  hasty 
purview  of  the  main  autobiographical  groups  shows 
their  participation  in  certain  common  attitudes,  views, 
and  feelings,  which  must  be  realized  before  we  can 
separate  those  attitudes,  views,  and  feelings  peculiar  to 
the  individual  himself.  The  whole  impression  must  be 
obtained,  if  only  to  serve  as  a  background  for  the  more 
salient  and  picturesque  figures  of  a  group.  In  studying 
such  groups,  one  follows  the  lines  laid  down  by  the 
psychologists  concerning  all  crowds.  Gustave  Le  Bon, 
in  his  Psychologie  des  Foules,  reminds  us  that  a 
number  of  individuals  does  not  constitute  a  crowd  — 
in  the  psychological  sense  —  until  the  different  in- 
dividualities which  compose  it  are  for  the  time  being 
submerged  by  the  pressure  of  a  common  energy,  a 


THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        175 

common  emotion,  and  a  common  end.  The  two  addi- 
tional causes  operating  to  produce  this  submergence 
are  contagion  and  a  mutual  sense  of  power.  The  crowd, 
therefore,  partakes  of  a  single  general  character,  very 
different  from  that  produced  by  its  separate  units,  and 
"its  sentiments  and  thoughts  turn  collectively  in  the 
same  direction."  When  carefully  observed,  this  fact, 
which  Le  Bon  terms  "the  psychological  law  of  the 
mental  unity  of  crowds,"  will  be  found  equally  true 
of  the  autobiographical  group,  and  explanatory  of  cer- 
tain apparently  contradictory  elements  in  the  individual 
documents  forming  that  group.  These  elements,  which 
are  really  so  simple,  have  often  puzzled  the  critic;  but 
a  comprehension  of  them  is  doubly  necessary  when  one 
comes  to  consider  their  total  impression,  the  atmo- 
sphere of  the  group  in  question. 

"Telle  groupe  humaine,"  says  M.  Ribot,^  "laisse 
celui  qui  le  frequente  une  impression  de  tristesse,  de 
gaiete,  de  dissipation,  d'austerite,  d'immoralite,  etc. 
Cette  atmosphere  morale  qui  joue  un  si  grand  role  dans 
I'education  et  la  vie  sociale  est  une  resultante  du  senti- 
ment evoque."  The  reader  of  a  series  of  contemporary 
memoirs,  then,  stands  for  the  person  who  frequents  the 
group,  and  who  is  thus  able  to  gauge  the  quantity  and 
quality  of  the  impression  —  the  "resultante  du  senti- 
ment evoque."  One  is  also  able  to  measure  its  extent, 
and  to  compare  the  effect  of  certain  permeating  moral 
^  "Psychologic  des  Sentiments." 


176  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

atmospheres  on  certain  societies,  with  the  effect  of  other 
moral  atmospheres  during  other  eras.  M.  Quetelet 
thinks  that  these  similarities  extend  themselves  even 
to  physiognomy,  forming  definite  and  recognizable 
types,  such  as  the  fifteenth  century  Italian  facial  type, 
and  the  typical  Napoleonic  "soldat  de  la  vieille  garde." 

M.  Taine  goes  even  further,  for,  in  the  introduction 
to  his  History  of  English  Literature,  he  states  that  a 
study  of  the  law  of  group-formation  is  indispensable  to 
the  understanding  of  all  questions  of  psychological  and 
sesthetical  development.  '' History,"  he  thinks,  ''must 
search  nowadays  for  these  rules  of  human  growth; 
with  the  special  psychology  of  each  special  formation  it 
must  occupy  itself  .  .  .  .  " 

"I  would  give  fifty  volumes  of  charters,  and  one 
hundred  volumes  of  state  papers,  for  the  memoirs  of 
Cellini,  the  epistles  of  Paul,  the  Table  Talk  of  Luther, 
..."  cries  the  enthusiastic  M.  Taine,  who  believes 
also  that  "the  confessions  of  a  superior  man  are  more 
instructive  than  a  heap  of  historians." 

However  this  may  be,  —  for  perceptions  of  values 
differ,  — it  is  a  comparatively  simple  matter  to  bring  this 
group  study  within  the  scope  of  a  reader's  attention. 
Nor  must  the  group  in  this  particular  case  be  limited 
only  to  subjective  documents,  although  these  will  ever 
remain  the  richest  nuggets  of  the  cache.  In  displaying 
general  characteristics,  however,  the  bald  historical 
record,  or  the  political  diary  has  its  place.   The  lists 


THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        177 

placed  in  Appendix  B  do  not  claim  to  cover  every  case, 
but  yet  give  the  representative  members  of  each  group. 
Chronicles  and  historical  records  are  inserted  only  when 
written  in  the  first  person. 

With  these  before  one,  it  becomes  no  difficult  task 
to  run  rapidly  over  the  distinguishing  and  salient 
qualities  of  these  groups  as  there  tabulated,  before 
passing  on  to  examine  the  cases  in  particular. 

The  first  thing  to  be  determined  of  any  individual 
memoire,  after  its  sincerity  has  been  tested,  is  its 
relation  to  its  group.  How  many  of  its  qualities  are 
common  to  that  society,  how  many  belong  to  the  indivi- 
dual? Cardan's  superstition  is  shared  by  Cellini,  Cor- 
naro,  etc.;  his  intellectual  penetration  and  scientific 
spirit  belong  to  him  alone.  The  attitude  toward  nature 
of  the  Electress  Sophia  is  shared  by  the  other  represent- 
ative self-biographers  who  wrote  during  the  same  fifty 
years;  her  humor,  her  independence  of  mind,  are  wholly 
her  own.  Compare  her  in  this  regard  with  the  two 
Mancini,  or  la  Grande  Mademoiselle,  or  Madame  Guyon, 
and  the  difference  will  be  felt  at  once.  Such  intellectual 
independence  as  she  displays  is  totally  unknown,  has 
not  been  dreamed  of  by  these  other  ladies.  The  poor 
scholar,  Thomas  Platter,  is  a  figure  at  once  strikingly 
individual  and  strongly  related  to  the  learned  world  of 
his  day.  What  he  owes  to  Conrad  PelUcan,  to  the 
Scahgers,  to  Casaubon,  is  shown,  and  also  the  toiling 
man  himself.   Here,  then,  lies  the  chief  value  of  the 


178  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

figure  evoked,  namely,  its  likeness  and  its  unlikeness  to 
other  figures  still,  for  us,  lurking  in  the  dusk. 

It  is  amazing  to  find  how  fresh  an  impression  may  be 
received  from  these  societies;  how  well  one  may  come 
to  know  the  separate  members,  to  understand  their 
friendships,  enmities,  jealousies,  emulations.  Across  the 
page  flashes  a  shifting  movement  and  color  like  life. 
And  although  the  greater  figures  will  always  tend  to 
obscure  the  lesser,  yet  many  of  us  will  find  friends 
among  these. 

Who  can  forget  Tabb^  Morellet,  "ce  bon  Morellet," 
with  his  passion  for  discussion,  his  gay  wit,  his  mordant 
irony,  his  religious  feeling  surviving  the  shock  of  many 
revolutions?  Charles  Colle,  that  French  Pepys,  thinks 
him  a  hot-headed  fellow,  yet  ever  apt  and  wise.  Morel- 
let  had,  in  truth,  great  critical  power  and  a  catholic 
taste.  His  knowledge  of  English  had  broadened  his 
mind.  His  paragraph  of  criticism  on  Clarissa  Harlowe: 
"Clarisse,  cette  grande  machine,  dans  laquelle  tant  de 
ressorts  sont  employes  a  produire  un  seul  et  grand  effet, 
oil  tant  de  caracteres  sont  dessines  avec  tant  de  force, 
oil  tout  est  prepare  avec  tant  d'art,  ou  tout  se  lie  et  se 
tient,"  has  not  been  bettered  by  all  our  English  eulogies. 
But  he  was  chiefly  noted  for  his  passionate  love  of 
conversation,  which  in  truth  he  carried  to  an  excess. 
Morellet  notes  that  the  Revolution  in  breaking  up 
society,  scattering  his  friends,  and  reducing  him  to 
hack-work  in  a  garret,  did  him  the  greatest  wrong  of  all 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        179 

when  it  deprived  him  of  good  talk.  This  love  of  dis- 
cussion shows  in  all  the  members  of  that  brilliant  and 
turbulent  circle.  Duclos,  Saint-Lambert,  Francoeuil, 
Mademoiselle  Quinault,  and  the  rest,  appear  to  exist 
chiefly  for  purposes  of  conversation.  In  the  curious, 
partly  fictitious,  and  yet  very  real  Memoires  of  Ma- 
dame d'Epinay,  we  may  distrust  the  sentiment,  look 
askance  at  the  ethics,  and  smile  at  the  philosophy,  but 
we  believe  in  the  conversations.  Within  all  that  mass 
of  artificial  insincerity  and  insipid  sentiment,  one  thing 
stands  forth  real  and  living,  —  that  talk  chez  Made- 
moiselle Quinault  where  Duclos  bangs  the  table  in  his 
energy,  and  the  little  Emilie  fears  that  the  tone  is  be- 
coming un  peu  fort.  During  these  discussions,  lasting 
often  uninterruptedly  for  hours,  —  for,  in  comparison 
with  our  own,  those  were  leisurely  times,  —  men's  opin- 
ions were  shifted  and  crystallized,  their  ideas  formed 
and  defined.  In  those  days  there  was  a  chance  to 
develop  original  thought  on  politics  or  literature,  which 
we  now  buy  for  a  penny  in  the  newspapers.  Then  it 
took  the  hard  hammer  of  discussion  to  mould  the 
great  changes  that  were  pending.  "Talk,  talk,"  says 
Turgenev  bitterly;  ''smoke,  smoke!"  Yet  this  was  the 
smoking  of  a  fire  whose  flames  were  to  redden  the  skies 
of  the  world. 

Madame  d'Epinay  furnishes  future  generations,  all 
unconsciously,  with  some  very  interesting  matter  when 
she  introduces  them  to  her  lover,  M.  Dupin  de  Fran- 


180  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

coeuil.  The  future  grandfather  of  George  Sand,  this 
gentleman  displays  certain  characteristics  which  we 
recognize.  Nowhere  in  all  literature  is  there  given  a 
more  vivid  and  convincing  description  of  the  process  of 
corrupting  the  mind.  The  young  Madame  d'Epinay  falls 
into  the  hands  of  a  certain  Mademoiselle  d'Ette  (a  figure 
out  of  Balzac),  who,  with  her  lover,  the  Chevalier  de 
Valory,  sets  to  work  systematically  to  bring  Emilie 
down  to  the  level  of  the  people  around  her.  The  success 
of  her  arguments  is  naively  shown.  Whatever  is  false 
and  fictitious  in  the  book,  —  and  there  is  much,  —  it  is 
not  the  psychology.  If  it  had  not  been  a  doctored  auto- 
biography, it  might  have  lived  as  an  important  novel. 
Of  course,  Jean  Jacques,  the  central  figure  of  that 
society,  has  plainly  impressed  his  method  on  these 
memoires.  That  opening  chapter  of  analysis  and  ex- 
planation, so  strong  in  intellectual  vigor,  so  weak  in 
philosophy,  is  typical  of  his  influence.  It  is  even  more 
noteworthy  in  the  case  of  a  later  member  of  the 
group,  in  Madame  Roland.  This  remarkable  woman, 
of  indomitable  spirit,  fine  sense  of  proportion,  moral 
strength,  and  delicate  perceptions,  thought  to  imitate 
the  Confessions  and  to  avow  certain  dusky  and 
morbid  moods  which  would  never  have  had  the  defi- 
nition of  words  attached  to  them  but  for  Rousseau's 
example.  She  has  done  herself  a  lasting  injustice  by 
their  perpetuation;  but  the  incident  is  very  instructive 
as  showing  us  the  power  of  imitation  in  forming  the 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        181 

tone  of  a  group.  No  healthier  woman  ever  lived  than 
Jeanne  Phlipon.  This  weak  morbidity,  which  she 
caught  from  one  of  the  most  morbid  of  men,  is  set 
at  naught  and  contradicted  by  her  every  other  word. 
Cases  like  these  permit  us  more  successfully  to  under- 
stand the  individual  autobiographer's  relation  to  his 
protagonist. 

To  return  to  the  group  itself  once  more,  and  to 
broaden  the  view  still  further,  Le  Bon  has  sufficiently 
demonstrated  that  all  persons  writing  their  own  lives 
during  the  same  decade  or  half-century  would  not 
necessarily  fall  into  the  same  group.  Wholly  different 
groups  may  exist  during  the  same  era.  We  see  this  in 
England,  where  the  Quaker  journalists  form  a  separate 
and  distinct  cluster,  unconnected  with  the  secular  per- 
sonal records  of  the  time.  Sporadic  cases  of  self-study 
occur  wholly  outside  of  any  contemporary  influences. 
Where  people  have  met  and  known  one  another,  or  ob- 
served and  imitated  one  another,  or  have  merely  fallen 
under  similar  prevailing  influences,  we  are  warranted 
in  grouping  them  together.  Where  contemporary  self- 
biographies  display  the  same  methods  of  presentation, 
the  same  subjective  viewpoint,  similar  sides  of  frank- 
ness, similar  corners  of  reticence,  we  are  warranted  in 
grouping  them  together.  Cardan,  Cellini,  Cornaro,  with 
Tartaglia,  Vesalius,  and  other  fragmentary  cases  —  the 
first  important  Italian  group  —  may  never  all  have  met 
in  the  flesh,  but  a  family  likeness  in  method  and  hand- 


182  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ling  cannot  escape  the  most  obtuse.  If  the  grouping 
strikes  one  reader  as  forced,  another  will  at  once  ac- 
knowledge that  it  brings  the  heterogeneous  material 
into  order  and  renders  it  amenable  to  law. 

In  the  same  way,  only  by  grouping  will  the  reader  be 
aided  in  forming  the  relation  of  the  subjective  docu- 
ment to  the  whole  world  of  personal  narrative.  Ob- 
servation of  the  lists,  ^  and  of  the  proportion  borne  to 
the  whole  by  the  cases  marked  as  subjective,  will  render 
certain  facts  immediately  apparent.  That  the  sub- 
jective tendency  rises  during  certain  social  and  mental 
conditions,  falls  during  others,  is  the  first  of  these.  This 
process  is  the  same  whatever  the  nation,  although  more 
typically  operative  in  France,  that  richest  of  all  litera- 
tures in  the  personal  record.  If  one  were  to  draw  a  line 
through  the  centuries  as  a  measurement  of  this  tendency, 
it  will  be  found  to  start  very  low  before  the  reign  of 
Henri  IV,  with  but  two  subjective  cases  in  eighteen 
personal  chronicles.  During  the  next  half-century  the 
rise  is  steady:  we  find  six  cases  definitely  subjective 
out  of  twenty-six  memoires,  and  some  of  these  last 
show,  in  part,  traces  of  the  influence,  although  they  do 
not  maintain  it.  The  reign  of  Louis  XIV  doubles  the 
number  of  autobiographies,  and  the  subjective  cases 
take  a  jump;  fifteen  out  of  forty-four  are  fully  so,  and 
at  least  half  of  the  residue  have  partly  personal  qual- 
ities. Just  before  the  Revolution  the  highest  point  is 
^  Placed  in  Appendix  B. 


THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        183 

reached  by  the  Rousseau  group;  thirteen  out  of  a  total 
of  twenty-one  memoires  are  complete  self-presentations. 

The  Revolution  and  the  Napoleonic  era  produced  an 
enormous  lessening  in  the  subjective  cases,  whereas  the 
personal  narrative  itself  increased  in  numbers.  Taking 
the  space  of  fifty  years,  which  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses cover  the  main  events,  we  find  twenty-five  im- 
portant and  representative  personal  accounts  of  the 
Revolution,  only  two  of  which  deal  with  the  writer  him- 
self rather  than  with  his  experiences.  The  immense 
outpouring  of  Napoleonic  memoires  shows  only  five  self- 
studies  in  the  total  of  sixty  personal  narratives.  After 
the  Napoleonic  epoch,  we  enter  upon  modern  literature, 
with  its  misleading  facility  to  all  sorts  of  print.  The 
cases  cease  to  group  themselves  with  any  definiteness; 
they  become  heterogeneous  and  scattered.  But  the 
passion  for  "I'analyse  personnelle"  rises  once  more,  and 
out  of  thirty-two  of  the  more  interesting  later  French 
memmres,  half  or  more  are  by  self-students. 

The  Italian  autobiographies  are  so  much  fewer  than 
the  French  that  the  course  of  our  line  of  proportion 
is  sharply  accented.  It  starts  higher  in  the  scale,  for 
the  personal  and  family  record  was  an  established 
fashion  in  Italian  literature  as  early  as  1300.  The  fore- 
runners whose  names  head  the  list  in  Appendix  B 
(Italian)  all  show  in  their  histories  that  they  follow  a 
known  custom.  But  the  earliest  noteworthy  Italian  self- 
biographies  are  also  the  most  subjective  cases  on  record. 


184  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Between  1500  and  1575  eight  out  of  eleven  are  minutely 
self-analytical.  The  proportion  declines  during  the  next 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  —  the  time  of  artificial  and 
imitative  prose  in  Italy  —  but  rises  again  to  the  highest 
point  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  A  group  of 
master  examples  then  occurs.  The  struggle  for  Italian 
independence  fifty  years  later,  produces  the  usual  large 
number  of  narratives  in  the  first  person,  and  again,  as  in 
France,  the  event  obscures  the  writer.  Only  five  out  of 
twenty-five  are  self-examinations  in  any  sense  of  the 
word. 

English  literature  shows  cases  of  this  kind  no  earlier 
than  1600.  We  find  twenty  important  secular  autobio- 
graphies written  before  1700;  of  these,  six  are  personal. 
The  religious  Quaker  journalists  from  1624  to  1800  form 
a  definite  and  singularly  interesting  separate  group, 
maintaining  a  high  average  of  introspection.  The  Napo- 
leonic wars  caused  the  fashion  to  drop.  It  is  succeeded 
rather  by  the  literary,  anecdotal  memoir,  descriptive  of 
the  friendships  and  activities  of  the  late  eighteenth  and 
early  nineteenth  centuries.  The  scientific  group,  about 
1850,  produced  an  outburst  of  self-study  which  is  the 
equal  in  value  and  proportion  of  the  Italian  groups ;  but 
since  that  time,  as  likewise  in  France,  the  movement  has 
lost  coherence  and  clearness,  clogged  by  the  innumerable 
cheap  and  petty  cases  which  flood  the  public.  The 
imaginary  line  just  mentioned  expresses  better  than 
any   further   description    the    ratio    of   subjective   to 


THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        185 

objective  cases,  at  different  epochs,  under  different 
influences.  And  comparison  develops  still  more;  it 
shows  that  the  conditions  under  which  the  subjective  ten- 
dency rises  or  falls  are  similar  conditions. 

Thus  there  is  made  manifest  the  presence  of  a  general 
law.  A  simple  induction  will  enable  the  reader  to 
form  and  to  complete  the  law  of  these  cases  for  himself. 
The  subjective  autobiography  groups  itself  about  the  great 
intellectual  movements  and  changes  of  the  world,  and 
lessens  or  disappears  in  times  of  material  change.  What 
occurred  during  the  points  where  the  imaginary  line 
touches  its  highest  mark?  In  France  its  height  is 
reached  just  before  the  Revolution,  that  time  of  enor- 
mous intellectual  activity  and  change  of  ideas.  This 
intellectual  uprising  produces  Rousseau  and  his  group; 
when  action  followed,  the  self-study  disappeared.  In 
Napoleon's  day  it  is  hard  to  find  a  single  subjective 
document,  so  completely  has  that  central  figure  over- 
shadowed men's  minds,  so  fully  has  imagination  been 
dominated  by  the  event.  In  Italy  the  same  law  is 
manifest.  An  earlier  civilization,  an  earlier  intellectual 
movement,  earlier  starts  the  subjective  trend;  it  rises 
high  just  before  1600,  at  the  time  of  Galileo  and  Cardan, 
at  the  era  of  new  thought.  After  dropping  lower  during 
the  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  Italian  feuds,  and  in- 
ternecine quarrels,  it  rises  once  more  in  Alfieri's  day, 
when  Vernon  Lee  notes  a  wave  of  intellectual  energy 
running  through   Italy,   under   the   same   current  of 


186  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

change  which  produced  the  French  Revolution.  During 
the  period  of  struggle  for  united  Italy,  it  dropped  to  the 
lowest  mark  in  its  history.  In  England,  several  great 
movements  are  intermingled;  but  its  political  activities 
keep  the  percentage  extremely  low  until  much  later  than 
in  other  countries.  The  violent  fluctuations  just  after  the 
Restoration,  followed  by  the  Quaker  and  other  religious 
movements,  mark  a  first  high  point;  and  the  second 
high  point  is  not  reached  until  our  own  day,  when  the 
great  scientific  upheaval  shifted  the  whole  intellectual 
point  of  view. 

Just  as  the  iron  filings  rise  and  cluster  about  a  magnet, 
so  do  men's  individualities  rise  to  expression  under  the 
influence  of  a  current  of  thought.  The  impulse  is  not 
to  be  explained  by  the  general  theory  that  warlike 
periods  of  national  life  are  apt  to  be  followed  by  an 
outburst  of  literary  and  creative  energy.  The  English 
and  Italian  tables  both  give  examples  of  the  rise  in  the 
self-study  at  a  time  of  general  literary  stagnation,  pre- 
ceding marked  intellectual  changes.  The  English  scien- 
tific group  begins  at  the  very  ebb  of  the  greater  literary 
activities  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

Find  the  dawn  of  new  ideas,  find  the  moment  when 
men's  minds  begin  to  submit  to  the  shaking  power  of  an 
intellectual  change,  and  there  you  will  find  the  attempt 
at  self-understanding  expressed  in  a  group  of  personal 
records.  The  observation  of  great  movements  at  work 
in  himself  causes  a  man  fresh  interest  in  himself:   the 


THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL    GROUP        187 

observation  of  a  similar  movement  at  work  in  others 
makes  a  man  wish  to  state  his  position,  to  define  his 
credo.  The  atmosphere  of  doubt,  restlessness,  inse- 
curity, caused  by  intellectual  upheavals,  produces  in 
the  serious  mind  a  desire  to  clear  the  ground  for  him- 
self, and  to  aid  others,  —  produces,  in  a  word,  the 
autobiographical  intention.  And  so  we  find  these  cases 
following  the  law,  and  grouping  themselves  about 
movements  of  intellectual  significance. 


PART   II 


CHAPTER  XI 

NATIONALITY  AND  PROFESSION 

Long  ere  we  have  reached  this  present  point  in  our 
examination,  certain  definite,  general  questions  will 
have  been  asked  by  the  reader.  Discussion  of  the  auto- 
biographer  as  a  class  and  as  an  individual,  raises  the 
question  as  to  the  main  influences  at  work  on  the  indi- 
vidual and  on  the  class.  In  other  words,  the  reader  has 
come  to  enquire  what  effect  a  national  and  professional 
bias  may  have  had  on  this  particular  literary  mani- 
festation. Is  the  autobiographical  intention  a  literary 
intention  merely,  or  does  it  strike  deeper  root?  Must 
we  not,  before  particularizing  the  examples,  comment 
on  the  broader  aspect  of  race,  nation  and  occupation? 
For  instance,  we  are  asked:  "Are  the  best  self-studies 
written  by  men  whose  work  is  literature,  or  by  those 
whose  work  is  not  literature?''  and  "What  nationality 
has,  as  a  whole,  produced  the  best  work  of  this 
kind?" 

Our  ramble  is  here  not  upon  a  by-path  at  all,  or, 
rather,  it  is  as  if  the  path,  heretofore  leading  by  flower- 
ing thicket,  shady  wood,  or  daisied  meadow,  came  sud- 
denly out  upon  the  broad  and  ancient  highway  of  some 
vanished  people,  overgrown  and  disused,  but  still  bear- 


192  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ing  tokens  of  its  greatness  in  the  huge  and  crumbling 
stones  of  the  roadbed,  and  the  easy  rise  of  its  grade 
over  the  hill.  These  main  roads  still  traverse  our  mental 
history,  though  time  and  confusing  civilization  have 
obscured  their  outlines.  Does  the  power  of,  and  the 
wish  for,  self-delineation  belong  to  the  literary  gift,  or 
is  it  something  entirely  apart? 

One  could  wish  to  glance  at  a  table  here,  just  as  it 
is  pleasanter  to  climb  a  height  and  take  a  hasty  survey 
of  the  surrounding  country,  before  plodding  through  it 
on  foot.  But  the  matter  is  too  broad  for  tabulation, 
—  can  hardly  be  presented  in  any  convincing  tabular 
form.  Perhaps  this,  in  itself,  is  an  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion, for  we  find  the  self-biography  written  by  the 
religious  and  the  secular  alike,  by  the  doctor,  the 
lawyer,  the  artist,  the  actor,  the  poet,  the  novelist, 
the  scientist,  the  philosopher,  the  rogue,  the  soldier,  the 
statesman,  and  the  monarch.  If  a  large  number  are  the 
work  of  the  litterateur  (this  French  word  covers  what 
English  needs  a  phrase  to  express),  an  equally  large 
number  are  by  persons  unused  to  the  pen,  and  driven 
to  the  task  by  the  autobiographical  intention  alon?.  If 
a  proportion  of  narrators  might  exclaim  with  Count 
Fosco:  "Habits  of  literary  composition  are  perfectly 
familiar  to  me,"  there  is  an  equal  proportion  to  whom 
the  whole  question  of  form,  arrangement,  and  style  is 
acknowledged  and  shown  to  be  a  matter  of  painful 
effort. 


NATIONALITY   AND   PROFESSION  193 

One  fact,  however,  may  be  noted  as  most  suggestive. 
Out  of  the  two  hundred  and  seventy  or  more  examples  ^ 
which  have  been  deemed  worthy  of  careful  study, 
barely  thirty-four  have  been  the  work  of  the  imaginative 
writer.  The  poet  has  contributed  eighteen  and  the  nov- 
ehst  nine,  the  playwrights  seven  autobiographies,  as 
against  twenty-six  by  general  literary  workers,  thirty- 
three  by  philosophers  and  scientists,  nine  by  historians 
and  thirteen  by  statesmen;  the  balance  is  made  up  by 
smaller  numbers  of  other  professions.  There  is,  in  other 
words,  strong  evidence  that  the  self-study  makes  its 
special  appeal  to  the  exact  mind,  and  that  in  modern 
times  it  is  exceedingly  rare  to  find  a  scientific  worker 
who  has  not  left  some  measure  of  autobiographical  ma- 
terial. The  ratio  confirms  that  estabUshed  by  the  table 
on  reasons  for  writing,  where  the  predominating  reason 
was  found  to  be  a  desire  to  add  to  the  search  for  truth. 
In  fact,  when  we  place  in  one  column  the  cases  just 
given,  with  the  forty  main  examples  of  religious  confes- 
sion actuated  by  the  same  serious  reason,  the  aggregate 
number  (one  hundred  and  fifty-five)  is  more  than  half 
the  number  of  capital  personal  records. 

Surely,  if  further  evidence  were  needed  as  to  the 
serious  and  honest  purpose  of  the  autobiography,  it  is 
given  by  showing  how  much  more  its  form  has  appealed 
in  the  past  to  men  of  fact  than  to  men  of  fancy;  with 
what  high  and  holy  things  it  has  been  associated.  The 
great  autobiography  may  be  the  work  of  men  so  unlike 
^  In  Appendix  C. 


IM  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

as  Cellini,  Franklin,  Alfieri,  but  a  likeness  exists,  not- 
withstanding —  it  is  the  common  seriousness  of  con- 
>      ception  acting  on  a  high  quality  of  mental  power. 

So  far  as  interest  and  value  go,  occupation  and  pro- 
fession appear  to  have  slight  influence.  Valuable  cases 
occur  under  everyone  of  the  tabulated  professions.  The 
soldier,  the  court-lady,  — Monluc,  Mademoiselle  de  Mont- 
pensier,  —  may  give  us  a  noteworthy  self-biography; 
and  so  may  Thomas  Platter,  the  obscure  schoolmaster; 
Solomon  Maimon,  the  Jewish  teacher;  Al-Ghazzali,  the 
sufi.  The  important  personal  narratives  are  not,  neces- 
sarily, by  professional  writers;  nor  can  they  suffer  the 
reproach  —  if  reproach  it  be  —  that  they  are  oftenest 
the  work  of  imaginative  minds.  On  the  contrary,  the 
majority  of  these  subjective  records  are  composed  by 
specialists,  scientists,  or  religious  leaders.  Historical  and 
political  memoirs,  it  goes  without  saying,  are  an  expres- 
sion of  monarchs,  statesmen,  and  court  functionaries, 
and  descriptive  of  their  peculiar  situations.  Where  a 
man's  position  in  life  brings  him  nearer  to  those  events 
which  in  their  very  nature  affect  and  interest  millions 
of  his  fellow-men,  he  is  likely  to  take  advantage  of 
the  fact,  and  so  a  memoire  becomes  a  sort  of  conven- 
tion. In  any  case,  we  are  warranted  in  classing  our 
self-study  with  other  scientific  material  —  a  dignity 
denied  it  hitherto.  If  we  expect  any  commentary 
on  the  effects  of  profession  or  occupation  we  shall 
be   disappointed;    nothing   definite  may  be  gathered 


NATIONALITY   AND   PROFESSION  195 

from  the  page.  Certain  generalizations  may,  unques- 
tionably, be  made  if  certain  moods  are  felt.  A  com- 
mon hyper-sensitiveness  runs  through  such  poet-lives  as 
have  been  left  to  us;  the  accuracy  in  bulk  and  in  detail 
of  the  scientist  is,  of  course,  shown  in  writing  his  own 
life;  of  the  painter,  the  doctor,  the  actor,  our  records 
are  violently  diverse  —  no  one  thread  runs  through 
them.  This  is  most  curious  in  the  last  case,  for  of 
various  memoirs  of  stage  folk,  one  (Macready)  is  a 
religious  document;  two  (Ristori  and  Salvini)  show 
natures  and  methods  simple,  dignified,  direct,  and 
sincere;  three  (Clairon,  Charke,  and  Bauer)  are  beset 
with  vanity  and  morbid  grievances;  ''Perdita"  is  wholly 
romantic,  and  Madame  Bernhardt  wholly  objective. 
To  no  one  effect  can  we  point  as  the  result  of  their  pro- 
fession on  these  eight  persons.  On  the  other  hand,  few 
autobiographies  of  the  military  order  appear  to  have 
been  written  which  do  not  mention  a  love  and  a  talent 
for  mathematics  in  boyhood.  In  this  one  regard,  from 
the  French  marshals  to  the  English  Lord  Wolseley,  they 
are  similarly  endowed,  almost  from  infancy.  But,  as  a 
whole,  we  may  confidently  repeat  that  the  influence  of 
profession  on  individuality  is  imperceptible. 

The  question  of  race-characteristics,  of  nationality, 
is  one  which  we  must  not  be  led  to  over-emphasize. 
The  statistician  has  pointed  out  that  evidence  can  have 
little  weight  on  this  subject  since  it  must  be  limited 
to  a  few  individual  minds.   Quantity,  rather  than  qual- 


196  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ity,  counts  here.  Allusion  has  already  been  made  to 
Quetelet's  warning  that  a  study  of  the  individual  ham- 
pers the  proper  conception  of  general  laws;  and  that  the 
individual  must  be  regarded  as  only  a  fraction  of  the 
species.  If  this  warning  was  advisable  at  the  outset  of 
a  general  study,  it  becomes  necessary  where  the  study 
touches  on  questions  of  race. 

Yet,  if  no  man  is  a  complete  guide  to  the  race  from 
which  he  springs,  it  is  true  that  his  own  personality  may 
underline,  may  accent,  those  characteristics  which  we 
speak  of  as  Oriental  or  Anglo-Saxon  —  as  French,  or 
English,  or  Italian.  In  every  highly-colored  tempera- 
ment there  are  shades  belonging  to  a  man's  race  rather 
than  to  himself.  The  Germanness  of  Goethe,  the  Italian- 
ness  of  Alfieri,  are  plain  to  be  seen,  although  their  genius 
may  be  universal.  But,  as  a  pyramid  may  not  stand 
upon  its  apex,  just  so  one  must  not  rely  too  confidently 
upon  the  race  qualities  of  a  single  personality,  however 
concentrated  an  essence  of  his  race  that  personality  may 
appear.  A  warning  is  needful,  because  the  mere  terms 
of  writing  tend  to  exaggerate  the  subject,  tend  to  make 
the  reader  believe  an  argument  is  being  stated  and  con- 
clusions formed.  Therefore  it  must  be  made  very  clear 
at  the  outset  that  certain  curiosities  of  psychology  are 
handled  for  what  they  are  worth. 

A  single  speck  of  cochineal  or  pepper  may  be  too 
small,  when  isolated,  for  us  accurately  to  determine  the 
color  of  the  substance,  which  yet  it  shares.   If  it  be 


NATIONALITY  AND   PROFESSION  197 

presumptuous  to  volunteer  any  final  estimate  of  the 
French  intellect  after  a  study  of  the  memoiriste  alone, 
yet  the  memoiriste  must  contribute  his  share  to  our 
impressions  of  the  whole.  Briefly  then,  theorists  may  be 
equally  mistaken  if  they  "have  been  cowardly  and 
hung  back"  and  if  they  *'have  been  temerarious  and 
rushed  unwisely  in,"  as  Stevenson  puts  it.  One  should 
not  exaggerate  the  suggestiveness  of  any  one  literary 
class;  yet  only  the  obtuse  would  deny  that  class  its  full 
participation  in  all  the  characteristics  of  its  race. 

Since  we  know  that  there  have  been  many  fluctua- 
tions in  the  introspective  tendency,  and  that  the  ap- 
proach to  a  measure  of  perfection  in  self-delineation  has 
been  far  from  steady  or  continuous,  it  were  not  amiss  to 
recapitulate  our  canons  for  the  classic,  the  ideal  auto- 
biography. The  first  is  a  serious  autobiographical 
intention,  seriously  maintained  and  seriously  fulfilled. 
The  work  thus  weighted  must  possess  that  balance  be- 
tween fact  and  feeling  without  which  no  attributes  of 
character  can  be  placed  in  a  proper  perspective  to  the 
observer.  The  sense  of  proportion  in  both  feeling  and 
fact  must  be  delicate  and  just.  There  should  be  style 
enough  to  make  the  personality  count.  More  is  usually 
a  disadvantage,  and  any  involved,  euphuistic  tendency 
injures  the  book  at  the  outset.  The  writer  of  his  own 
life  must  remember  above  all,  that  he  is  making  first,  a 
scientific  document;  second,  a  piece  of  literature.  If 
he  can  do  it  simply,  clearly,  vividly,  so  much  the  better 


198  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

for  him  and  for  us;  but  he  had  better  make  a  dry 
digest  than  a  romantic  narrative;  better  follow  Cardan 
than  Kenelm  Digby. 

The  standards  just  set  up  have  been  fulfilled  to  a 
larger  degree  by  the  Italians  than  by  any  other  nation. 
Not  only  do  their  incomparably  great  examples  reach 
more  nearly  our  perfect  self-study  than  those  of  any 
other  country,  but  their  unfinished,  their  minor  cases, 
share  in  their  distinction.  We  owe  them  Alfieri,  Goldoni, 
Querini,  Cardan,  and  Cellini;  complete,  authoritative 
psychological  records;  and  also  marvelously  perfect  frag- 
ments—  Lorenzino  de  Medici,  Vico,  Chiabrera,  Leo- 
pardi,  Petrarch,  Giusti.  These  show  an  equal  clearness, 
balance,  and  just  discrimination  of  values.  They  never 
err  in  over-emphasizing  the  non-essentials.  This  pre- 
eminence of  Italian  memoirs  has  given  rise  to  admirable 
editions  and  collections,  to  penetrating  commentators 
like  Ancona  and  Luigi  Carrer.  The  crowning  glory  of  the 
Italian  autobiographer,  however,  is  his  ability  to  distin- 
guish between  emotion,  sentiment,  and  fact.  Never  is 
the  reader  in  the  slightest  doubt  as  to  what  Benvenuto 
Cellini  was  doing,  as  apart  from  what  he  was  feeling.  The 
fear,  affection,  and  superstition  of  Cardan  are  carefully 
differentiated  from  his  acts,  from  his  accomplishment, 
from  his  opinions.  In  Alfieri's  struggle  for  self-control 
there  is  no  confusion  between  what  actually  happened, 
what  other  people  thought,  and  what  Alfieri  thought. 
This  extraordinary  combination  of  high  capacity  and 


NATIONALITY  AND   PROFESSION  199 

emotion  with  a  scientific  method,  is  not  to  be  found  in 
other  literatures  to  anything  like  the  same  degree. 
There  are  separate  instances,  of  course.  Herbert  Spen- 
cer represents  the  scientific  method  in  autobiography, 
but  in  his  case  the  method  has  overwhelmed  the  matter 
and  left  but  little  construction  to  the  picture.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung,  and  the  His- 
toire  de  ma  Vie,  so  lack  method,  are  so  occupied  with 
the  flow  of  feeling,  and  the  vague  and  rosy  glow  of 
reminiscence,  that,  whereas  we  cannot  somehow  see  Mr. 
Spencer  going  daily  to  the  Athenaeum  Club,  and  feel, 
instead,  that  his  real  place  of  residence  was  in  a  glass 
case  at  the  British  Museum,  we  are  equally  at  a  loss  to 
evoke  the  young  Wolfgang  or  the  later  Aurore  Dude- 
vant,  and  cannot  shake  off  the  sensation  that  we  have 
been  reading  rather  inferior  works  of  fiction  by  these 
noted  hands.  Now  this  is  not  once  the  case  with  the 
Italian  writers,  in  whom  the  power  of  just  analysis 
does  not  seem  to  interfere  with  the  presentation  of  a 
living  figure.  Apparently,  emotion  in  literary  expression 
has  retained  with  them  its  primal  force,  has  not  become 
weakened,  diluted,  into  sentiment.  It  is  as  if  their  cre- 
ative faculty  has  paused  longer  than  is  usual  at  the 
point  of  balanced  maturity,  when  emotion  still  gives 
impetus  to  the  intellectual  forces,  when  intellect  gives 
direction  and  weight  to  emotion.  The  Italian  auto- 
biography has  displayed  this  measure  of  equilibrium 
for  a  space  of  three  hundred  years  or  more,  —  dis- 


200  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

plays  it  still,  in  sporadic  and  scattered  cases.  Pages  of 
Giusti  forcibly  recall  that  stream  of  earlier  power  from 
1575  to  1800. 

In  no  other  country,  among  no  other  people,  has  the 
self-biographer  shown  an  impersonal  aloofness  in  regard 
to  truth  with  the  same  touch,  as  we  may  say,  in  which 
he  has  animated  his  picture  with  the  warm  hues  of  life. 
Let  any  one  lay  side  by  side  those  passages  in  which 
Jerome  Cardan  deals  with  his  gambling,  Benvenuto 
Cellini  with  his  amours,  and  similar  passages  from  Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau;  or  compare  Alfieri's  description  of 
his  conquest  over  passion  and  entrance  into  freedom 
of  mind,  with  Franklin's  errata,  and  somewhat  smug 
progress  on  the  road  to  prosperity,  and  the  differences 
will  be  at  once  as  striking  as  apparent. 

Far  exceeding  the  Italian  in  number  and  variety,  yet, 
on  the  whole,  below  their  level  of  general  excellence, 
the  French  memoire  has  stood  for  centuries  as  an  expres- 
sion of  the  most  characteristic  qualities  of  the  French 
genius.  From  the  first  it  has  been  a  literary  creation 
rather  than  a  scientific  document.  The  very  earliest 
cases  are  marked  by  their  sense  for  style,  their  love 
of  form,  the  unity  and  finish  of  their  construction.  A 
literary  impulse  produced  them,  a  literary  atmosphere 
pervades  the  completed  work.  Sentiment  as  a  literary 
constituent  is,  therefore,  disproportionately  predomi- 
nant. Passion,  emotion  —  not  literary  things  at  all  — 
are  banished. 


NATIONALITY   AND   PROFESSION  201 

But  if  it  be  true  that  several  Italian  autobiographers 
reach  levels  to  which  only  a  single  famous  French  self- 
student  has  attained,  yet  no  one  can  deny  to  the 
French  hand  a  mastery  in  rendering  this  kind  of  narra- 
tive artistic,  agreeable,  and  complete.  If  there  be  in 
France  no  such  group  of  great  psychological  cases  as  we 
have  found  in  Italy,  there  is  a  mass  of  admirably  inter- 
esting works.  At  once  Hvely  and  accurate,  poUshed 
without  stiffness,  flexible  without  looseness,  the  French 
memoire  carries  with  it  a  general  readableness,  inde- 
pendent of  era,  of  author,  —  we  had  almost  said,  of 
matter.  It  is  this  general  readableness  and  popularity 
and  fascination  which  has  led  to  the  wholesale  forgery 
of  memoires,  in  full  operation,  as  we  have  seen,  as  far 
back  as  the  time  of  Courtilz  de  Sandraz  and  the  Me- 
moires d'Jirtagnan.  The  traits  which  coalesce  to  make 
this  universal  readableness,  include  wit  and  humor  (for 
in  other  literatures  the  early  autobiography  is  whoUy 
serious),  graceful  details  superimposed  upon  a  plan  of 
regularity,  and  an  infinite  penetration  and  vivacity  in 
dealing  with  persons.  It  is  in  France  that  woman  makes 
her  first  appearance  as  a  memoiriste  —  woman,  so  es- 
pecially fitted  by  her  continuity  of  memory  to  preserve 
for  future  generations  both  the  main  aspect  of  the 
social  life  of  her  day,  and  the  rich  details  which  build 
up  the  Hfe  of  the  individual. 

If  we  place  the  French  and  Italian  records  beside  one 
another,  we  see  the  lines  of  human  nature  in  the  latter 


202  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

deeper-cut,  more  freely  outlined;  a  rough  vigor,  a  primal 
force,  lives  in  them.  The  capacity  for  creative  emotion, 
heightened  and  strong  in  the  Italian,  has  in  the  French 
been  formalized  and  lowered  to  a  cult  of  sentiment. 
This  is  the  main  great  difference  between  them.  An- 
other difference  is  developed  when  one  looks  at  the 
chief  tendencies  of  the  French  literary  mind,  and  notes 
the  sense  for  form  above  mentioned,  and  also  the  in- 
herent and  overwhelming  sense  for  personality.  This 
interest  has  by  no  means  escaped  the  psychologist. 
M.  Alfred  Fouillee,  in  his  most  illuminating  tract  on 
the  Psychologie  du  peuple  Frangais,  analyzes  it  in  the 
following  terms:  — 

*'Par  son  intellectualisme,  notre  litterature  est  port^e 
h  considerer  les  etres  et  les  personnes  sous  I'aspect  qui 
les  rend  plus  saisissables  a  Tintelligence ;  or,  on  pent 
dire  que  c'est  avant  tout  I'aspect  conscient,  celui  ou 
I'etre  existe  pour  soi,  et  devenu  transparent  a  lui-meme, 
le  devient  aussi  aux  autres.  Ce  que  nos  ecrivains  met- 
tent  a  relief,  ce  sout  toutes  les  passions  et  les  idees  qui 
arrivent  a  la  connaissance  de  soi." 

This  intellectuality,  so  early  turned  upon  itself,  is 
present  in  the  most  trivial  example,  entirely  blotting 
out  surroundings,  nature,  conditions,  beauty,  or  atmos- 
phere. Nature  hardly  exists  for  the  Frenchman  before 
the  Revolution,  and  M.  Fouillee  does  not  let  this  fact 
escape  him. 

"Le  sens  de  la  nature,"  he  says,  "a  ete  long  a  se  d^- 


NATIONALITY   AND   PROFESSION  203 

velopper  dans  la  litterature  frangaise,  tant  la  vie  intel- 
lectuelle  et  sociale,  rapportant  tout  a  rhomme,  absorbait 
tout.'^ 

Every  reader  of  the  early  memoires  knows  how  just 
is  M.  Fouillee's  observation;  how  ^'I'aspect  conscient, 
celui  ou  Tetre  existe  pour  soi, "  totally  absorbs  the  mind 
of  the  writer  and  of  his  friends.  Search  as  one  may,  it  is 
hard  to  find  the  briefest  sketch  of  surroundings.  We 
read  of  a  movement  from  place  to  place;  but  the  char- 
acters journey  like  Greek  gods  in  clouds  of  their  own,  so 
do  they  enwrap  themselves  in  the  single  atmosphere  of 
Paris.  We  hear  nothing  about  the  country  except  the 
annoyance  of  traveling  through  it;  nothing  of  nature 
save  when  she  inconsiderately  hampers  the  progress  of 
the  great;  nothing  of  the  provinces  save  their  provin- 
ciahty;  nothing  of  Lyons  or  Marseilles  save  their  dis- 
tance from  Paris.  Reading  these  records  one  might 
easily  believe  the  country  quite  homogeneous,  —  the 
scenery  of  Normandy  exactly  like  the  scenery  of  the 
Midi.  These  ladies  and  gentlemen  seem  to  have  gone 
about  with  their  eyes  shut.  The  Electress  Sophia  of 
Hanover  (writing  in  French)  makes  a  visit  to  Venice 
in  1680;  asked  to  admire  the  town,  she  confesses  that 
she  finds  it  "extremely  melancholy,"  though  she  likes 
the  Corso,  because  there  is  no  dust !  The  St.  Gothard 
Pass  to  her  is  simply  frightful  and  alarming,  —  when  it 
is  not ''nasty,"  —  and  of  the  journey  in  her  carriage 
from  Bologna  to  Rome,  she  remarks  that  she  did  not 


204  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

find  it  so  tedious  because  she  played  cards  all  the  way ! 
The  marshals  Monluc  and  Bassompierre,  the  two  Man- 
cini  sisters,  la  reine  Margot,  Madame,  mere  du  Regent, 
rarely  condescend  to  mention  the  outdoor  world  at  all. 
Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier  admires  but  one  spectacle 
in  her  four  volumes,  and  that  is  her  father's  funeral  pro- 
cession. *'Cela  parut  tres  beau,"  she  says,  and  adds 
characteristically,  '^et  Ton  dit  que  j'etois  magnifique 
en  tons  que  j'ordonnois."  We  have  all  accompanied 
Madame  de  Sevign^  and  the  good  Corbinelli  a  score  of 
times  in  her  traveling  carriage,  ^^aux  Rochers/'  but  we 
are  rarely  told  anything  about  the  house  or  the  estate; 
and  Madame  de  Grignan's  journeys,  we  remember,  were 
simply  to  be  dreaded  and  bewailed.  If  Saint-Simon  or 
Madame  de  Motteville,  when  they  tell  us  how  un- 
comfortably the  court  moved  out  to  Versailles,  should 
have  described  that,  on  their  arrival,  the  sun  shone, 
the  sky  was  clear  and  mild,  the  fountains  sported  their 
jets  of  silver  and  the  talons  rouges  gleamed  upon  the 
turf,  the  dullest  reader  would  at  once  mark  the  passage 
as  suspect. 

Not  until  Rousseau  brought  nature  into  fashion  and 
made  possible  such  charming  descriptive  passages  as 
occur  in  Marmontel,  do  we  find  the  surroundings  of  a 
character  considered  as  of  value  in  drawing  any  picture 
of  that  character.  This  alone  renders  the  pre-revolu- 
tionary  memoires  as  illuminative  socially  as  they  are 
narrow  in  other  regards.   Their  strength  and  their  weak- 


NATIONALITY   AND   PROFESSION  205 

ness  lie  alike  in  this :  strength,  in  those  graphic  touches 
with  which  they  portray  the  social  group;  weakness,  in 
that  they  fail  to  relate  their  group  to  the  world  of  hu- 
manity in  general.  Whereas  Cardan  and  Alfieri  are, 
first  of  all,  men,  and  secondly,  creative  intelligences  and 
Italians,  the  French  memoiriste  is,  first  of  all,  a  French 
person,  secondly,  soldier,  poet,  or  grande  dame,  moving 
quite  serenely  in  a  little  world  apart. 

Somewhat  similar  attitudes  have  been  credited  to  the 
English  of  to-day;  they  are  not  true  of  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth-century  Englishman.  Insular  he  may 
have  been  in  certain  customs  and  conventions,  but  a 
great  and  different  world  lay  close  about  him,  forced 
itself  on  his  attention.  The  literature  of  journal  and 
autobiography  in  England  is  full  of  atmosphere  and  ob- 
jective detail.  The  rural  life  of  seventeenth-century 
England  has  been  painted  for  us  as  if  it  were  the  stage- 
setting  of  a  drama.  Nor  is  it  true  of  the  countryside 
alone.  The  London  of  Evelyn  and  Pepys — how  much 
more  vividly  it  is  pictured  than  the  Paris  of  Madame  de 
Staal-Delaunay !  And  professional  London,  —  the  Lon- 
don of  Symonds  d'Ewes,  or  of  Roger  North,  —  how 
much  more  reality  has  it  than  the  Paris  of  Bassompierre 
and  Sully !  Their  French  minds  are  turned  inward  upon 
personalities  —  theirs  is  the  aspect  conscient.  And  this 
is  one  reason  why  French  autobiography  surpasses  the 
Enghsh. 

The  autobiography  has  touched  in  modern  English 


20G  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

literature  extremes  of  nobility  and  banality.  Hordes 
of  cheap  and  commonplace  persons  have  been  encour- 
aged to  mount  the  witness-stand.  The  Lights  and 
Shadows  of  my  Pastorate  and  My  Steps  Heavenward 
type  of  record  exist  in  such  profusion  as  to  cheapen 
the  value  of  evidence  in  general.  At  the  same  time, 
single  instances  are  of  unusual  distinction  and  weight; 
and  in  the  group  of  Quaker  journalists  our  literature 
possesses  an  unique  and  complete  record  of  a  great  reli- 
gious movement.  One  cannot  forget  Egerton  Brydges, 
Mill,  and  Harriet  Martineau,  nor  the  later  scientists, 
whose  worth  is  incalculable  if  their  picturesqueness  be 
less.  If  the  general  tone  is  less  intellectual,  the  particu- 
lar cases  stand  extremely  high.  Undeniably,  however, 
autobiographical  writing  in  England  —  with  the  single 
exception  of  the  Quaker  group  —  is  sporadic  until  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  casual  glance  will  observe  at  once  that  the  impor- 
tant English  autobiography  is  comparatively  modern. 
In  J.  Payne  Collier's  Bibliographical  Account  of  Early 
English  Literature,  in  four  volumes,  only  one  prose 
autobiography,  Richard  Vennar's,  is  considered.  This 
is  at  the  same  date  as  Cardan  and  Cellini  in  Italy,  as 
Monluc,  Marguerite  de  Valois,  and  the  chroniclers  in 
France.  As  a  fashion,  the  personal  record  in  England 
dates  practically  from  Rousseau;  and  this  is  why  all 
English  books  of  criticism  are  so  naif  in  their  references 
to  Jean  Jacques  as  the  primal  autobiographer.   They 


NATIONALITY   AND   PROFESSION  207 

invariably  speak  of  him  as  the  parent  of  the  whole 
introspective  crew. 

Is  there  an  important  English  self-study  earlier  than 
George  Fox  or  Herbert  of  Cherbury?  If  we  take  the 
former  as  our  first  capital  English  self-dehneator,  we  es- 
tablish a  level  which  must  carry  us  over  until  we  meet 
the  name  of  Edward  Gibbon,  writing  in  1789.  The 
barren  stretch  in  this  particular  field  struck  M.  Taine 
at  once,  who  comments  on  the  aridity  of  the  Puritan 
memoir,  and  its  lack  of  personal  qualities.  But  after 
Gibbon  and  Rousseau  and  the  French  Revolution,  the 
fashion  takes  a  firm  hold  on  English  literary  energies; 
the  autobiography  widened,  deepened,  heightened 
steadily  in  value  until  it  reached  its  zenith  in  the 
middle  years  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  discussion,  a  few  pages  back,  of  the  Wahrheit 
und  Dichtung,  mentioned  with  emphasis  as  a  cause  of 
its  vagueness  the  mental  habit  of  confusing  sentiment 
with  fact.  Our  excuse  for  repeating  the  phrase  is 
that  it  furnishes  us  with  the  reason  why  we  possess 
no  German  autobiographies  of  definite  standing  and 
worth.  Study  of  representative  cases  confirms  the  im- 
pression made  by  the  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung;  Rich- 
ter,  Kotzebue,  Stilling,  Lavater,  with  their  Teutonic 
brothers,  such  as  Hans  Andersen  and  Louis  Holberg, 
are  all  vitiated  by  the  same  poison.  They  may  often 
be  read  with  interest,  they  may  contain  curious  or 
suggestive  matter;  but  they  are,  in  the  main,  psy- 


208  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

chologically  valueless.  The  emotion  which  was  height- 
ened to  passion  in  Italy,  and  clipped,  drilled,  formalized 
to  a  cult  of  sentiment  in  France,  has  spread  over  the 
German  pages  a  smudge  of  sentimentality,  besmearing, 
hiding  all  it  touches.  Incidents  typical  of  this  charac- 
teristic in  Kotzebue  and  in  Andersen  have  already  been 
given;  if  any  one  desires  others,  let  him  read  the  auto- 
biography of  Ludwig  Spohr,  or  of  Jung  Stilling,  or  the 
singular  life  of  the  actress  Karolin  Bauer.  From  the 
recent  autobiography  of  the  novelist  George  Ebers,  not 
one  single  valuable  fact  about  the  author  can  be  ob- 
tained. Of  course,  there  are  Germans  writing  wholly 
under  the  influence  of  other  literatures,  who  escape  this 
danger.  Such  is  the  sixteenth-century  schoolmaster, 
Thomas  Platter;  Heinrich  Suso,  the  mystic;  the  great 
Erasmus;  and,  later,  those  remarkable  women,  the 
Electress  Sophia,  and  Wilhelmine,  Margravine  of  Bareith. 
But  the  latter,  and  Catherine  II,  once  of  Anhalt-Zerbst, 
write  in  French  because  of  French  inspiration,  and  the 
earlier  German  savants  wrote  in  Latin.  If  we  do  not 
give  up  a  section  to  the  consideration  of  the  German 
autobiography,  it  is  because,  as  autobiography  in  our 
sense  of  the  word,  it  does  not  exist. 

If  Americans  consider  that  our  literature  has  also 
signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  then  it  is  evi- 
dent we  can  hardly  lay  claim  to  those  of  the  Quaker 
journalists  who  came  and  labored  here,  and  yet  kept 
their  allegiance.  Those  who   do  not  call  themselves 


NATIONALITY   AND   PROFESSION  209 

American,  we  may  not  call  so.  For  all  that,  we  have 
our  classic  autobiography,  and  it  is  strange  that  this 
example  should  be  at  once  so  distinctive  and  so  typical, 
even  at  that  date,  of  a  separate  nationality.  Typical 
it  still  remains,  for  even  now  the  ideal  American  is 
Franklin  in  little.  The  figure  he  presents,  —  prudent, 
sagacious,  prosperous,  —  above  all,  prosperous,  — with  a 
healthy  moral  code  not  in  the  least  fanatic  or  strained; 
with  humor,  energy  and  importance  in  affairs,  —  is  not 
this  still  the  American  ideal  at  its  best?  Franklin, 
that  large  embodiment  of  somewhat  small  virtues,  has 
left  us  a  balanced  and  complete  self-delineation,  after 
reading  which  we  have  but  one  regret  —  that  his  are 
qualities  which  do  not  bear  reduction  from  the  heroic 
stature.  It  is  not  easy  to  say  whether  the  influence  of 
his  record  has  been  more  useful  or  hurtful.  Its  balance 
is  extraordinary:  the  writer  is  wholly  reasonable;  he 
is  moved  by  common  sense;  he  is  consistently  utilitarian 
in  every  event  of  his  life.  His  attitude  toward  what 
he  terms  his  errata  is  as  gentle  as  we  could  wish  it 
possible  to  be  toward  our  own.  Interesting  and 
significant  is  the  fact  that  his  first  erratum  is  "a 
violation  of  trust  respecting  money";  which  might  well 
be  written  in  black  and  giant  letters  over  the  whole 
United  States,  from  Maine  to  California.  The  second 
was  his  abandonment  (for  reasons  of  prudence)  of 
the  young  woman  to  whom  he  was  betrothed.  He 
repairs  the  fault  as  best  he  may  later  on,  and,  after 


210  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

his  Wanderjahr,  renews  the  engagement  and  marries 
her. 

Toward  vice  he  is  also  wholly  utilitarian.  "  The 
intrigues  with  low  women  that  fell  in  my  way,"  he 
writes,  ''were  attended  with  some  expense,  great  in- 
convenience, besides  a  continual  risk  to  my  health." 
The  emphasis  here  is  adjusted  to  suggest  that  if  one 
could  moderate  the  expense,  bear  the  inconvenience,  and 
avoid  the  risk  to  health,  Franklin  knew  no  other  reasons 
for  self-restraint.  Poor  Burns  —  how  deep  a  sinner, 
and,  worse  than  all,  how  unprosperous !  —  has  a  clearer 
insight,  a  more  poignant  accent.  Even  at  its  full  stream 
of  splendid  energy,  Franklin's  intellectual  development 
is,  in  a  measure,  hampered  by  his  expediency.  Practi- 
cally a  free-thinker  in  religion,  he  yet  never  mentions 
his  free-thought  without  apology.  If  he  sets  systemat- 
ically at  work  to  weed  himself  of  faults,  to  "arrive  at 
moral  perfection,"  he  gives  up  the  task,  lest  it  ''might 
be  a  kind  of  foppery  in  morals,  which  if  it  were  known 
might  make  me  ridiculous."  Again,  we  find  him,  even 
in  his  inner  life,  governed  by  his  cardinal  principle  of 
mundane  success.  Seeing  ourselves  in  this  great  man, 
—  perhaps  the  most  typically  American  of  all  our 
great  men,  —  what  small,  what  ungenerous  creatures 
do  we  after  all  appear !  Could  we  have  pointed,  as  the 
quintessence  of  our  national  character,  but  to  some 
courageous  idealist! 

But  enough  of  carping.   Some  of  us  must  walk  the 


NATIONALITY   AND   PROFESSION  211 

earth,  yet  reverencing  still  that  type  of  ''beautiful  and 
ineffectual  angel,  beating  in  the  void  his  luminous  wings 
in  vain."  For  the  reader,  the  value  of  Franklin's  auto- 
biography lies  in  our  being  able  to  trace  therein  the 
growth  of  uncommon  mental  powers,  developed  by  self- 
education  and  given  an  exceptional  field  of  activity. 
The  intelligence  with  which  he  governed  his  own  life  and 
affairs,  became  intellect  when  he  turned  it  to  the  service 
of  the  country  at  large.  His  measure,  persuasiveness, 
and  wisdom,  used  among  men,  carried  immediately  into 
execution  the  projects  of  an  ingenious  and  benevolent 
mind.  The  man's  powers  were  both  dignified  and  ex- 
panded by  success.  His  autobiography  traces  for  us  the 
gro^vi^h  of  personal  thrift  into  communal  economy;  of 
petty  ingenuity  into  great  invention;  of  individual  in- 
dustry into  a  spirit  fit  to  animate  a  people;  and  of  intel- 
lectual understanding  of  others,  from  the  tact  which 
enabled  him  to  keep  on  terms  with  a  drunken  partner, 
into  that  firm  sagacity  to  which  we  owe  so  stable  a  part 
of  our  national  existence. 


CHAPTER  XII 

MEMORY 

"I  WILL  soar  then  beyond  this  power  of  my  nature 
also;  and  I  enter  the  roomy  chambers  of  memory,  where 
are  the  treasures  of  countless  images.  .  .  .  And  I  dis- 
cern the  scent  of  lilies  from  that  of  violets  while  smelling 
nothing;  and  I  prefer  honey  to  grape-syrup,  a  smooth 
thing  to  a  rough,  though  I  neither  taste  nor  handle,  but 
only  remember.  These  things  do  I  within  the  vast 
chamber  of  my  memory.  .  .  .  There  also  do  I  meet  with 
myself  and  recall  myself  .  .  .  and  when  I  speak,  the 
images  of  all  I  speak  about  are  present  out  of  the  same 
treasury  of  memory.  Great  is  this  power  of  memory, 
exceeding  great,  oh  my  God !  —  an  inner  chamber 
large  and  boundless.  Who  has  plumbed  the  depths 
thereof?  Yet  it  is  a  power  of  mine,  and  appertains  unto 
my  nature;  nor  do  I  myself  grasp  all  that  I  am.  There- 
fore is  the  mind  too  narrow  to  contain  itself.  ...  A 
great  admiration  rises  upon  me;  astonishment  seizes 
me.  .  .  .  And  men  go  forth  to  wonder  at  the  height  of 
mountains,  the  huge  waves  of  the  sea,  the  broad  flow 
of  the  rivers,  the  extent  of  the  ocean,  and  the  courses 
of  the  stars,  and  omit  to  wonder  at  themselves.  ..." 

In  these  magnificent  sentences  of  Augustin  —  which, 
in  truth,  approach  the  accent  of  Hamlet's  "What  a 


MEMORY  213 

thing  is  man!'^  —  we  read  all  the  wonders  of  a  new 
outlook.  Why  should  man  marvel  at  the  world  and 
leave  unregarded  the  perpetual  marvels  at  work  within 
him?  Chief  apartment  in  the  palace  of  mystery  is  'Hhat 
roomy  chamber  of  memory."  The  first  sustained  effort 
of  self-examination  brings  to  Augustin  a  sense  of  ex- 
haustion and  bewilderment. 

''Truly,  O  Lord,  I  labor  therein  and  labor  in  my- 
self. .  .  .  But  what  is  nearer  to  me  than  myself?  And 
behold  I  am  not  able  to  comprehend  the  force  of  my  own 
memory  though  I  cannot  name  myself  without  it.  .  .  . 
Of  what  nature  am  I?  A  life  various,  manifold,  and  ex- 
ceeding vast.  .  .  .  Through  it  all  do  I  run  to  and  fro 
and  fly;  I  penetrate  on  this  side  and  on  that,  so  far  as  I 
am  able,  and  nowhere  is  there  an  end." 

Although  this  wonder  of  memory  has  never  been  so 
deeply,  so  truly  voiced  as  in  these  sentences,  yet  as  a 
wonder  it  persists  in  page  after  page  of  personal  narra- 
tive. Rare  is  the  document  that  does  not  begin  with 
specified  first  recollections,  or  with  some  allusion  to  the 
earUest  memories.  In  historical  chronicles  written  in 
the  first  person,  this  early  remembrance  may  be  the  only 
subjective  fact  recorded  on  the  first  page  or  two  of  the 
author's  introduction.  The  age  at  which  it  occurs  is 
sometimes  noted  (though  we  could  wish  more  fre- 
quently), and  in  the  case  of  important  persons  this 
becomes  interesting  and  suggestive.  The  consensus  of 
experience  gives  it  between  three  and  four  yearS;  as 


214  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the  lists  show.*  In  regard  to  the  other  cases,  there 
would  appear  to  be  as  many  remembering  at  two  years 
as  after  four  years.  Casanova  recalls  nothing  before 
eight  years  and  four  months,  which  is  as  unusually  late 
as  his  sexual  experiences  were  early,  for  they  began  at 
ten  years  old. 

An  earlier  first  remembrance  does  not,  by  any  means, 
imply  a  generally  powerful  memory.  Alfieri,  Rousseau 
and  Renan  remember  nothing  before  their  fifth  year, 
yet  they  possessed  unusually  strong  memories.  Cellini, 
Goethe,  Goldoni,  Cardan  and  John  Ruskin  were  four 
years  old,  or  thereabouts,  at  the  incident  of  the  first 
remembrance.  Those  whose  recollection  goes  to  two 
years  and  earlier,  are  apt  to  connect  it  with  some  slight 
shock — a  fall,  an  illness,  a  death  in  the  family,  or  news 
of  the  Lisbon  earthquake.  William  Hutton  remembers 
a  whip  at  two,  an  ocular  delusion  before  three.  John 
Gait  says:  '^ Memory  carries  me  transactions  that  must 
have  happened  when  I  was  less  than  two  years  of  age, 
yet  I  have  not  a  very  good  general  memory."  Jean 
Paul  Richter  goes  back  still  further:  ''I  am  able  to 
bring  from  my  twelfth  or  at  furthest  my  fourteenth 
month,  one  pale  little  remembrance  .  .  .  that  a  poor 
scholar  loved  me  much  and  carried  me  in  his  arms." 
The  age  given  is  not  to  be  received  without  question, 
yet  the  recollection  is  a  typically  childish  one. 

Herbert  of  Cherbury,  whose  childhood  was  sickly,  and 
*  In  Appendix  D. 


MEMORY  215 

who  -^Tites,  ''It  were  so  long  before  I  began  to  speak 
that  many  thought  I  would  ever  be  dumb,"  gives  a 
curious  first  memory.  ''The  very  furthest  thing  I  re- 
member/' he  says,  "is  that  when  I  understood  what 
was  said  by  others,  I  did  yet  forbear  to  speak,  lest  I 
should  utter  something  that  were  imperfect  or  imperti- 
nent." The  strangeness  of  this,  which  could  not  have 
been  seriously  credited  but  for  what  he  tells  us  of  deli- 
cacy and  retardation,  lies  in  its  subjectivity;  for,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  the  normal  first  memory  is,  almost  with- 
out exception,  objective.  In  contrast  to  Herbert,  we 
find  Lord  Brougham  talking  fluently  at  eight  months 
old;  and  yet  first  remembering  the  story  told  by  his 
grandmother  of  his  parents^  marriage,  fully  two  years 
later  in  his  life.  The  first  memory  of  the  Cardinal  de 
Bernis  was  of  being  weaned,  and  also  of  being  amazed 
at  shadows  on  the  wall;  he  must  have  been  less  than 
two  years  old.  Herbert  Spencer  avows  that  he  only 
"remembers  that  he  once  remembered"  a  keen  dread 
of  being  alone.  William  Bell  Scott's  Autobiographical 
Notes  give  his  theory  that  "the  earliest  remembrances 
we  retain  from  childhood  do  not  refer  to  the  externals 
of  life  .  .  .  but  relate  to  the  difl&culties  of  conscious- 
ness." Jerome  Cardan  supports  this  idea  with  his 
dumb,  struggling,  early  memory  of  night-terrors  and 
phantasms;  and  so  does  Harriet  Martineau,  for  her  in- 
numerable childish  fears  are  the  very  first  thing  she  can 
recall.    Blind,  unreasoning  dread  of  people,  of  dusk,  of 


216  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the  star-lit  sky,  of  nightmares  themselves,  and  the  fear 
of  nightmares.  "I  had  scarcely  any  respite  from  terror," 
she  says  of  those  early  recollections. 

What  sort  of  things  do  people  remember?  asks  the 
curious  reader.  A.  J.  C.  Hare  remembered  a  big  dog's 
knocking  him  down;  Cellini,  a  salamander  and  a  beat- 
ing; George  Sand,  a  bad  fall  and  a  cut,  bleeding  and 
excitement;  Ludwig  Spohr,  a  smell;  Edward  Gibbon, 
insubordination  and  a  whipping;  Thomas  Holcroft, 
playing  with  his  parents  before  three  years  old;  Dr. 
Joseph  Priestley,  playing  with  a  pin;  Goethe,  the  house 
where  he  was  born;  and  the  Highland  lady,  Mrs.  Grant, 
"some  West  Indian  seeds,  pretty,  red  and  shiny,  with 
black  spots  on  them."  These  are  typical  childish  im- 
pressions of  another  type  from  the  terrors  of  Cardan, 
Spencer,  Sonia  Kovalevsky  and  Miss  Martineau;  or  from 
the  states  of  consciousness  of  Herbert,  Job  Scott  the 
Quaker,  and  Solomon  Maimon.  A  third  type  recalls  sur- 
roundings, atmosphere,  background.  Of  these  are  Cha- 
teaubriand, Edgar  Quinet,  Lamartine,  Dumas,  and 
Alfred  Russel  Wallace.  John  Ruskin  observes  espe- 
cially that  we  first  remember  places.  A  parting, 
whether  temporary  or  eternal,  often  makes  the  first  deep 
impression  on  the  mind  of  a  little  child.  Alexandre 
Dumas  remembers  nothing  before  his  father's  death, 
neither  does  the  godly  Robert  Blair,  who  says  —  poor 
baby!  —  that  ''at  his  interring,  I  used  my  bairnly  en- 
deavoring to  be  in  the  grave  before  him." 


MEMORY  217 

Baron  Marbot  and  Colonel  Meadows  Taylor,  like 
George  Sand,  recollect  a  childish  accident;  and  Josiah 
Flynt  Willard's  first  memory  is  of  the  first  manifesta- 
tion of  his  life-long  passion  for  running  away.  Sir 
Symonds  d'Ewes,  that  learned  lawyer,  was  not  likely 
to  pass  over  his  first  memory,  for  at  three  years  old  he 
crept  into  his  grandfather's  wine-cellar  and  drank  him- 
self into  unconsciousness.  ''It  brought  me  very  near 
my  grave,"  he  declares,  and,  as  a  matter  of  reaction, 
caused  him  to  loathe  all  liquor  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
Scott's  friend,  ''Jupiter"  Carlyle,  remembers  the  drown- 
ing of  a  boy  comrade,  to  whom  he  had  confided  his  half- 
pence to  buy  some  sweets.  The  loss  of  the  sweets  made 
an  indelible  impression.  Alexander  Bain  remembers 
being  at  dame's  school  at  three  years  old;  and  Massimo 
d'Azeglio  remembers  posing  for  a  "putto"  to  a  painter 
friend  of  Alfieri's,  when  he  was  a  restless  little  child  of 
four.  It  is  rather  curious  to  find  the  pains  of  childhood 
persisting  over  and  beyond  the  joys.  There  is  not  a 
single  one  among  the  memories  just  cited  that  is  of  a 
delight;  in  fact,  the  only  definite  case  here  of  joyful 
first  memory  appears  to  be  Goldoni,  in  whom  the  gift 
of  a  puppet-show,  when  he  was  four  years  old,  produced 
transports  of  pleasure  which  have  survived  all  other 
impressions. 

If  we  glance  back  over  these  first  memories,  the 
statement  that  the  normal  first  memory  is  objective 
seems  to  be  sustained.   The  autobiographer  himself  ob- 


/ 


218  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

serves  this,  for  we  find  Alexandre  Dumas  making  a 
special  note  that  incidents  and  places  are  the  clear 
pictures  which  his  mind  retains.  Alfred  Russel  Wal- 
lace comments  especially  on  the  vivid  character  of 
objects  and  surroundings  in  his  memory,  whereas,  like 
Dumas,  even  personalities  are  to  him  half-effaced.  If, 
therefore,  the  usual  recollection  takes  so  definite  a  form 
as  red  seeds,  or  a  big  dog,  or  a  whipping,  it  behooves 
one  to  look  a  little  more  closely  at  these  few  cases 
wherein  it  has  taken  a  subjective  form.  Terror,  pure 
and  simple,  formed  the  first  remembrance  of  Cardan, 
of  Harriet  Martineau,  of  Sonia  Kovalevsky,  and  of 
Herbert  Spencer,  alike  only  in  that  they  were  delicate, 
sickly,  and  over-sensitive.  Maimon's  sense  of  childish 
subtlety  (he  got  the  better  of  an  argument  at  three  and 
was  rewarded  by  sugar),  and  Herbert ^s  sense  of  childish 
reticence,  and  Job  Scott's  memory  of  "the  serious 
impressions  and  contemplations "  of  his  feelings  in 
meeting,  are  linked  together  by  their  evidence  of  a 
somewhat  abnormal  childhood.  These  seven  cases  of 
subjective  first  memories  belong,  as  we  see,  to  five  men 
and  two  women.  Three  of  the  seven  are  scientists, 
three  students  and  writers,  and  one  a  religious  fanatic. 
Diverse  as  they  seem,  in  sex,  occupation,  talent,  na- 
tionality and  date,  they  are  alike  in  this,  that  they  all 
were  unhealthy  children.  Cardan,  as  we  have  read,  was 
an  abnormally  delicate  boy;  Miss  Martineau  had  dys- 
pepsia and  was  deaf;  Sonia  was  extremely  nervous; 


MEMORY  219 

Herbert  Spencer  thinks  himself  below  par  as  a  child; 
Job  Scott  records  a  series  of  illnesses  and  melancholies. 
Maimon  gives  no  evidence  of  ill  health  during  child- 
hood, but,  none  the  less,  describes  a  condition  of 
abnormal  precocity  and  nervous  overstrain. 

Before  quitting  the  subject  of  first  memory,  therefore, 
it  seems  reasonable  to  point  out  that  in  healthy  and 
normal  cases  it  takes  an  objective  form,  and  that  this 
first  remembrance  becomes  subjective  only  under  some 
abnormal  influence.  Infirmity,  sickness,  or  nervous 
strain,  governed  those  memories  which  hold  keen 
terrors,  hideous  nightmares,  religious  awe,  or  exagger- 
ated states  of  self-consciousness;  and  it  may  be  said, 
in  passing,  that  the  specialist  in  child-study  will  gain 
more  than  he  imagines  from  an  examination  of  the 
records  left  by  these  seven,  together  with  those  of 
Alfieri,  Agrippa  d'Aubign^,  Robert  Blair,  Goethe, 
Guibert  de  Nogent,  J.  S.  Mill,  Rousseau,  George  Sand, 
Marie  Bashkirtsev,  Henry  Alline,  Bellarmin,  J.  A. 
Symonds,  P.  G.  Hamerton,  M.  A.  Schimmelpenninck, 
Vico,  Robert  Southey,  Zerah  Colburn,  Ristori,  Sahdni, 
Samuel  Roberts,  Edmund  Gosse,  Anne  Gilbert,  Georg 
Brandes,  Lord  Brougham,  William  Hayley,  Robert  and 
Wilham  Chambers,  Guido  Sorelli,  G.  Giusti,  WilUam 
Hutton,  John  Ruskin,  George  Fox,  Jeanne  de  la  Mothe- 
Guyon,  Teresa,  H.  Heine,  with  many  other  religious 
docum^ents,  and  minor  fragmentary  autobiographies. 

Frequent  as  are  the  accounts  of  what  the  self-student 


220  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

first  recalls,  it  is  exceedingly  rare  to  find  a  writer 
noting  the  beginnings  of  self-consciousness.  Such  as 
do  so  are  usually  modern.  Roger  North,  born  in  1653, 
observes  of  his  commencing  school:  ''I  began  to  have 
a  sense  of  myself."  Jean  Paul  Richter's  description  of 
the  same  moment  is  very  curious:  ''I  stood  one  after- 
noon, a  very  young  child,  at  the  house  door,  when  all 
at  once  that  inward  consciousness  /  am  a  me,  came  like 
a  flash  of  lightning  from  Heaven,  and  has  remained 
ever  since;"  and  he  adds,  with  naivete:  ''Deceptions 
of  memory  are  here  scarcely  imaginable."  Alfred  Rus- 
sel  Wallace,  the  scientist,  and  William  Bell  Scott,  the 
painter,  draw  similar  experiences  as  to  suddenness  and 
intensity. 

The  latter  is  minutely  described :  "  One  evening  when 
turning  up  the  turf,  I  found  it  swarming  with  annulose 
and  centipedal  creatures  to  me  previously  undreamt 
of  .  .  .  supernatural,  yet  vital  activities.  ...  I  rose 
up  straight.  ...  I  was  apart  from  these  and  from 
everything  else,  alone,  in  an  antagonistic  creation, 
accountable  only  to  myself  for  preservation  and  well- 
being."  And  he  goes  on  to  declare  that  the  change  was 
from  ''the  repose  of  instinct  to  that  of  thoughtful  per- 
plexity and  unrest,  responsibility  and  isolation,  never 
to  be  again  lost."  Edmund  Gosse,  at  six,  suddenly 
underwent  the  "consciousness  of  self  as  a  force  and  as 
a  companion."  The  circumstances  attendant  on  this 
case  are  particularly  curious  and  interesting.    William 


MEMORY  221 

Bell  Scott's  experience  in  certain  of  its  features;  the  un- 
expectedness, for  instance,  and  the  intensity,  markedly 
resembles  that  of  religious  conversion.  In  the  strict 
sense  of  a  'burning  about,"  it  is  conversion,  indeed. 
Sir  Capel-Lofft  says:  "almost  all  the  active  powers  of 
my  mind  have  come  upon  me  thus  suddenly  like 
moments  of  grace."  Although,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
inrush  of  self-consciousness  is  very  rarely  observed 
and  recorded,  yet  there  is  enough  evidence  to  warrant 
us  in  believing  that  it  varies  immensely  with  the  indi- 
vidual, and  is  by  no  means  attached  to  a  special  age. 

Richter,  Scott  and  Gosse  were  "very  young  chil- 
dren"; Wallace  and  North  were  schoolboys.  There 
are  cases  where  we  can  see  that  the  subject  must  have 
been  a  youth  —  cases  Uke  Lofft,  De  Thou,  or  George 
Fox.  Mark  Pattison  describes  himself  as  too  childish 
at  seventeen  to  receive  any  impression  whatever  from 
Paradise  Lost,  and  as  not  having  any  consciousness 
of  his  subjective  self  much  before  twenty  or  twenty-one. 
Development  was  similarly  late  in  the  case  of  Georg 
Brandes.  Intellectual  growth,  no  doubt,  with  its  in- 
finite variations  in  the  individual,  must  govern  the 
experience. 

When  it  comes  to  the  accuracy  of  these  early  first 
impressions,  the  autobiographer  himself  is  not  without 
his  doubt.  This  we  have  already  quoted  in  Herbert 
Spencer's  case.  "Of  incidents  in  childhood  my  remem- 
brances have  assumed  that  secondary  form  which  I 


222  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

suspect  they  mostly  do  in  advanced  life  —  I  simply 
remember  that  I  once  remembered."  The  implication 
here  that  advancing  years  dull  the  early  memories,  is 
not  borne  out  by  the  bulk  of  the  evidence.  Psycholo- 
gists point  out  that,  in  general,  a  man  in  late  middle 
life  has  clearer  pictures  of  his  childhood  than  when  he 
was  twenty-five.  Turgenev  expresses  this  idea  in  a 
more  literary  form  when  he  says:  *'But  to  bend  a 
cold,  clear  gaze  over  all  one's  past  life  —  as  a  traveler 
turns  and  looks  from  high  mountains  on  the  plain  he 
has  passed  through  —  is  only  possible  at  a  certain  age." 
In  the  introduction  to  her  autobiography,  Sonia 
Kovalevsky  expresses  the  doubt  and  analyzes  the 
familiar  difficulty.  "I  should  like  to  know,"  she  asks, 
*' whether  any  one  can  definitely  fix  that  moment  of  his 
existence  when  for  the  first  time  a  distinct  conception 
of  his  own  personality,  his  own  ego,  the  first  glimpse 
of  conscious  life  arose  within  him.  I  cannot.  .  .  , 
When  I  begin  to  sort  out  and  classify  my  earliest  recol- 
lections .  .  ,  these  disperse  before  me.  I  can  never 
succeed  in  evoking  a  single  one  of  these  recollections  in 
all  its  purity;  I  involuntarily  add  something  foreign  to 
it  during  tne  very  process  of  recalling  it."  Professor 
William  James  in  his  Psychology  states,  as  a  general- 
ization, what  Sonia  so  vividly  describes  as  a  personal 
experience.  Both  of  them  thus  take  another  view-point 
from  Richter,  or  from  William  Bell  Scott,  which  it  is 
instructive  to  contrast  with  the  recorders  of  "  moments 


MEMORY  223 

of  grace."  With  all  his  effort  to  understand  the  miracles 
of  mental  growth,  extending,  as  we  have  seen,  to 
psychological  problems  in  themselves.  Cardan  excludes 
memory,  taking  it  for  granted  as  a  basis,  and  firmly 
relying  upon  its  data. 

The  controversy  as  to  memory  in  the  sexes,  has  as- 
sumed the  form,  at  the  present  time,  of  a  mass  of 
general  statement,  very  slightly  supported  on  either 
side  by  particular  instances.  School  records  are  made 
to  form  the  basis  of  various  conclusions,  useful  so  far 
as  they  go,  no  doubt,  but  bearing  the  vital  objection 
of  dealing  with  abilities  as  yet  immature  and  unformed. 
As  a  result  of  these  statistics,  the  two  sides  are  most 
contradictory  in  their  dogma.  On  the  one  hand  is  the 
view  of  Dr.  Hall,^  that  "Woman  excels  in  memory.  .  .  . 
Her  thought  is  more  concrete  and  individual;  she  is 
more  prone  to  associations,"  etc.  This  view  upholds 
woman  as  the  ideal  letter-writer  and  domestic  recorder, 
because  of  her  gifts  for  visualizing  concrete  images  and 
connecting  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  German 
writer  Otto  Weiniger,  in  his  book.  Sex  and  Charac- 
ter,"^ largely  rests  his  burden  of  proof  of  woman's 
mental  inferiority  on  her  lack  of  "continuity  of 
memory."  "When  a  woman  looks  back  over  her  life," 
he  maintains,  "and  lives  again  her  experiences,  there 
is  presented  no  continuous,  unbroken  stream,  but  only 
a  few  scattered  points." 

^  "Adolescence,"  vol.  i,  p.  568.  '  Page  124. 


224  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The  memory  tables^  will  be  found  to  contain  many 
female  names  as  furnishing  data  for  the  first  recollection. 
They  have  purposely  not  been  classed  apart  from  the 
male,  in  order  that  they  might  not  be  examined  with 
any  shade  of  difference  in  the  mind  of  the  reader. 
That  they  are  fewer  in  number  goes  without  saying;  the 
same  proportion  continues  through  every  department 
of  literature;  yet  the  evidence  furnished  here  does  not 
appear  to  show  any  lack  of  continuity.  It  is  probably 
unfair  to  compare  book  with  book  in  this  regard:  for 
instance,  the  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung  shows  an  in- 
finitely smaller  sense  of  continuity  of  memory  than 
the  Histoire  de  ma  Vie.  Yet,  even  laying  side  by 
side  the  strong  man  autobiography  with  the  strong 
woman  autobiography, —  Mill,  as  an  example,  beside 
George  Sand,  —  the  result  does  not  annihilate  the 
constructive  effect  of  the  latter.  Woman  has  not,  as 
yet,  written  the  Cardan  type  of  self-study,  and  on 
the  side  of  her  emotional  life  she  appears  to  be  natur- 
ally more  secretive  and  reticent  than  man;  but  she 
yields  nothing  to  him  in  vividness,  power,  or  con- 
tinuity of  recollection.  The  breadth  of  mind  in  the 
male  autobiographer,  his  tendency  to  connect  his  own 
personality  with  the  world  at  large,  causes  him  fre- 
quent lapses  of  recollection,  breaks  in  the  continuity; 
while  the  more  limited  range  of  the  woman's  inter- 
ests permits  her  memories  to  move  without  gap  from 
*  In  Appendix  D. 


MEMORY  225 

event  to  event,  from  state  of  mind  to  state  of  mind. 
Can  one  say  of  such  autobiographers  as  Marguerite 
de  Valois,  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier,  Madame  de 
Staal-Delaunay,  George  Sand,  Miss  Martineau,  the  Mar- 
gravine of  Bareith,  Mrs.  Oliphant,  that  their  recol- 
lections present  *'no  continuous  stream,  but  a  few 
scattered  points"? 

It  is  pleasant  to  find  aspects  during  our  ramble 
which  we  need  not  classify  or  differentiate,  some  blooms 
over  which  one  needs  not  botanize.  The  attributes  of 
the  sexes  occupy  so  much  attention  to-day,  that  the 
subject  appears  to  shift  like  a  disputed  boundary  line 
between  rival  countries.  Now  the  raider  from  this  side, 
now  the  discoverer  from  that,  sets  up  his  flag  and 
claims  a  strip  of  territory.  How  much  of  woman  is  in 
man,  and  how  much  of  man  is  in  woman,  is  a  discus- 
sion perpetually  in  search  of  fresh  evidence.  Once  for 
all,  then,  these  pages  can  aid  it  little,  for  there  is  no 
sex  to  the  autobiographer;  on  this  field  the  writer 
stands  or  falls  by  the  performance  itself.  The  great 
self-student  may  be  either  man  or  woman;  it  is  only 
required  that  he  be  thoroughly  the  one  or  the  other. 
Equipment  for  this  task  is  as  much  woman's  as  man's; 
each  has  his  special  candor,  each  his  temperamental 
reticence.  As  regards  memory  alone,  the  woman's  is 
usually  more  intimate,  more  personal,  more  limited  and 
more  complete;  and  the  data  furnished  by  both  may  be 
used  without  undue  attention  to  the  fact  of  sex.    Com- 


226  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

parative  study  tends  to  show,  at  least,  that  those  powers 
of  memory  which  bring  about  and  confirm  the  auto- 
biographical impulse,  belong  to  both  sexes,  and  place 
the  results  of  self-study  equally  within  the  reach  of 
both. 

Perchance  this  is  by  the  way.  Our  path  mounts  at 
times  the  little  eminence  of  argument  to  stand  upon 
the  little  hill  of  theory,  or  merely  wanders  between 
the  flowering  hedgerows  of  allusion,  or  pauses  to 
admire  a  distant  view  or  to  lament  the  untidy  bor- 
ders of  a  neighbor's  garden.  The  reader,  who  is  our 
walking  companion,  must  be  content  this  should 
be  so. 

Observation  of  memory  in  the  autobiographer  sus- 
tains the  prevalent  theory  of  its  relation  to  genius. 
Among  the  cases  of  persistently  weak  memories  not  a 
single  one  is  a  mind  of  the  first  order.  Though  it  may 
develop  late,  a  strong,  if  selective,  memory  seems  to  be 
a  first  requisite  of  intellectual  power.  But  the  quality 
of  memories  must  vary,  and  just  as  different  physical 
training  may  develop  different  muscles,  so  special 
mental  training  must  produce  different  kinds  of  memory. 
The  verbal  memory  of  the  litterateur,  the  face-and- 
character  memory  of  the  politician,  the  date-and-event 
memory  of  the  historian,  —  these  may  alter  the  treat- 
ment of  the  same  facts.  Pasquier's  four  volumes  are 
a  tribute  to  his  general  powers  of  memory,  yet  he 
declares  he  could  never  learn  by  rote,  word  for  word. 


MEMORY  227 

Some  memoiristes  omit  all  dates;  others  lay  a  stress  on 
them  which  their  value  does  not  warrant.  Rousseau 
never  gave  an  accurate  date,  but  how  accurate  was  his 
memory  and  transcription  oi  feeling!  So  the  ''roomy 
chamber"  is  furnished  anew  for  every  occupant. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

RELIGION 

Though  the  religious  confession  has  been  thoroughly 
studied,  though  it  is  the  only  branch  of  autobiographical 
writing  which  up  to  the  present  has  been  systematically 
classified  in  order  to  receive  scientific  attention,  this 
study  has  been  individual  rather  than  comparative. 
Two  lines  of  investigation  have  been  respectively 
brought  to  bear  upon  important  examples,  the  psychical 
and  the  medical.  The  philosopher  and  the  student  of 
religions,  has  consulted  these  documents  for  the  purpose 
of  collating  from  their  individual  rehgious  experiences 
data  to  elucidate  and  confirm  certain  theories  as  to 
general  religious  experience.  In  their  hands  the  cases 
resemble  a  series  of  dots  which,  drawn  on  paper,  form 
a  line  having  a  certain  curve  and  length.  Before  these 
records  can  be  of  service  in  this  way,  a  pre-supposition 
must  exist  that  they  are  normal,  representative.  The 
student  of  religious  movements  and  emotions  makes 
use  of  them  because  he  believes  them  to  display  feel- 
ings, ideas,  exaltations  common  to  a  large  section  of 
humanity,  descriptive,  in  more  or  less  measure,  of  the 
experience  of  many  earnest  and  thoughtful  persons.  An 
Augustin  or  a  Teresa,  he  beheves,  must  simply  voice 
the  common  ideas  accompanying  certain  normal  and 


RELIGION  229 

definite  religious  conditions;  and  the  student,  therefore, 
feels  warranted  in  his  induction  as  to  the  power  of 
religion  over  the  souls  of.  men. 

The  second  view  of  the  religious  confession  is  directly 
antagonistic  to  this  one,  although  the  extent  of  its  an- 
tagonism has  not,  as  yet,  been  clearly  demonstrated. 
This  point  of  view,  denying  the  state  of  mysticism  ^^er  se, 
regards  the  religious  confession  as  an  abnormal  mani- 
festation, its  existence  as  a  proof  of  the  singularity  of 
the  subject,  and  its  data  as  directly  pathological.  The 
very  incidents  of  exaltation,  the  very  intensity  and 
variety  of  emotions,  which  to  the  religious  student  are 
indicative  of  the  strength  of  a  ''something  not  ourselves 
which  makes  for  righteousness,"  in  this  view  form  but 
the  syndrome  of  neuropathic  conditions.  Such  records 
are,  therefore,  far  from  normal.  Their  writers  are  not 
to  be  regarded  as  representative  of  countless  unwritten 
cases,  not  to  be  regarded  as  representative  of  common 
experience,  but  rather  the  reverse.  Religious  strain, 
religious  excitement,  religious  depression,  whether  con- 
sidered as  the  manifestations  of  hysteria,  or  as  a  form 
of  insanity,  or  as  a  neurosis,  are,  in  any  event,  to  be 
regarded  not  as  general,  not  as  normal,  but  as  individual 
and  as  pathological. 

According  to  this  conception,  the  miracles  attending 
on  what  we  have  been  lately  taught  to  call  the  ''phe- 
nomena of  conversion,"  are  symptomatic  of  abnor- 
mality.  The  visual  and  auditory  hallucinations,  the 


230  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

great  lights  from  heaven,  or  voices  from  on  high,  are 
not  to  be  considered  as  intrinsically  differing  from 
secular  hallucinations.  They  are  no  more  to  be  taken 
as  indicating  the  presence  in  human  life  of  any  non- 
natural  or  non-material  influence  whatever,  than  the 
frequent  delusion  of  the  insane  that  they  are  being 
persecuted  may  be  taken  to  indicate  that  persecu- 
tion is  an  imbedded  instinct  in  the  human  race.  The 
fact  that  these  hallucinations  are  in  many  cases  un- 
accompanied by  any  other  symptoms  of  illness  or 
abnormality,  would  serve,  in  this  opinion,  simply  to 
isolate  the  malady.  The  fact  that  they  are  associated 
with  genius,  with  a  high  ethical  sense,  with  a  high 
degree  of  creative  and  intellectual  ability,  does  not 
shake  the  theory.  Broadly  stated,  it  is  based  simply 
upon  the  syllogism  that  hallucinations  are  abnormal, 
that  if  the  religious  leader  has  hallucinations  he  is 
abnormal,  no  matter  what  may  be  the  quality  of  the 
man,  the  nature  of  the  hallucination,  or  the  aesthetic 
beauty  of  the  whole  case. 

Such  are  the  two  chief  aspects  of  the  religious  con- 
fession, and  according  to  them  it  has  been  examined. 
Books  like  Professor  William  James's  Varieties  of  Re- 
ligious Experience,  and  Professor  Starbuck's  Psychology 
of  Religion  investigate  it  from  the  first  point  of  view; 
men  like  Ribot  and  Grasset  maintain  the  pathological. 
To  the  second,  Richard  Burton,  in  the  Anatomy  of 
Melancholy  J  has  unconsciously  added  the  weight  of  his 


RELIGION  231 

erudition,  for  the  section  on  religious  melancholy  is 
packed,  though  all  unwittingly,  with  examples  to  main- 
tain the  neuropathical  opinion. 

The  difficulty  mth  the  second  aspect  —  which  is  un- 
doubtedly favored  by  men  of  science  at  the  present 
time  —  is  the  difficulty  of  establishing  the  norm.  The 
psychological  study  of  religion  is  entirely  modern;  so 
recent,  indeed,  that  it  can  turn  to  no  storehouse  of 
accredited  facts,  but  must  snatch  its  material  out  of  the 
air,  like  a  conjurer  with  oranges.  It  has  succeeded  in 
maintaining  and  upholding  certain  similarities  which 
bring  closely  home  to  us  the  ties  of  human  nature,  bind- 
ing alike  the  Quaker  and  the  Catholic,  the  Sufi,  the 
Buddhist,  and  the  Jew;  and  it  has  succeeded  in  showing 
us  that  power  of  emotion  which  propels  the  religious 
idea.  Religious  manifestation  invariably  brings  the 
emotions  into  play,  and  in  quantity  and  strength  is 
governed  by  the  quantity  and  strength  of  those  emo- 
tions. This  fact  immensely  affects  the  written  docu- 
ment; and  when  we  remember  that  the  creative  literary 
impulse  has  also  in  itself  a  heightening  effect  on  emo- 
tion, we  see  that  we  are  not  apt  to  be  furnished  with 
the  religious  experiences  and  feelings  of  perfectly 
balanced  and  controlled  people.  Francis  Galton,  in 
The  Human  Faculty,  declares:  '^It  would  be  instruct- 
ive to  make  a  study  of  the  working  religions  of 
good  and  able  men  of  all  nations  —  and  also  as  to 
their  happiness  and  unhappiness."   Such  a  study  would 


232  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

aid  in  setting  up  some  normal  standard  by  which  the 
variations  might  be  judged.  But,  above  all,  in  examin- 
ing such  testimony,  the  quality  of  the  witness  becomes 
of  importance.  In  Professor  James's  Varieties  of  Reli- 
gious Experience,  although  the  author  declares  his 
intention  to  confine  himself  to  ''those  more  developed 
subjective  phenomena  recorded  in  literature,  produced 
by  articulate  and  fully  self-conscious  men  in  works  of 
piety  and  autobiography,"  there  is  apparently  no 
attempt  at  any  standard  of  credibility.  The  sincerity 
of  Augustin  or  Teresa  is  treated  as  on  the  same  plane 
with  that  of  Billy  Bray,  the  street  evangelist,  or  that  of 
the  latest  Salvation  Army  convert.  Moreover,  although 
comparison  in  itself  implies  certain  similarities,  and  can 
only  be  useful  within  the  same  limits.  Professor  James 
yet  uses  indifferently  the  witness  of  Augustin  and  of  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Skinner.  With  so  many  documents  extant 
of  serious  intention,  and  by  warranted  hands,  it  would 
seem  hardly  necessary  to  include  the  Christian  Scientists, 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Skinner,  and  the  street  evangehsts  — 
''Osiris,  Isis,  Orus,  and  their  crew."  And  this,  not  be- 
cause they  are  less  religious,  but  because  what  they  tell 
of  their  experiences  is  less  trustworthy  and  less  credible. 
The  careful  work  done  by  Professor  Starbuck  is  open  to 
the  same  objections,  which  become  intensified  when  we 
read  the  answers  of  those  camp-meeting  and  revivalist 
converts  to  the  list  of  questions  offered  by  him  as  better 
worth  scientific  attention  than  autobiographies  in  books. 


RELIGION  233 

As  well  might  one  suggest  to  the  student  of  poetry  that 
he  had  better  omit  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Dante,  and 
devote  his  attention  to  the  works  of  Tupper  or  to  the 
Botanic  Garden  of  Dr.  Darwin!  The  analogy  is  not 
so  remote.  Religious  conversion  is  an  outcome  of  emo- 
tion, just  as  poetry  is  an  outcome  of  emotion;  and  such 
emotion  may  be  cheap  and  transient,  or  vital  and  dis- 
tinguished. Following  out  Professor  Starbuck's  idea, 
the  student  of  poetry  might  maintain  that  Tupper  and 
Dr.  Darwin  were  more  modern,  and  were  therefore 
acted  upon  in  poetical  mood  by  conditions  nearer  to 
our  own;  that  their  work  was  less  heightened,  and 
therefore,  more  sincere;  that  the  student  could  more 
easily  comprehend  the  spirit  of  real  poetry  from  them, 
because  they  were  more  nearly  at  his  own  level!  The 
fallacy  of  this  reasoning  is  a  fallacy  very  prevalent 
to-day,  in  all  sorts  of  work  claiming  to  deal  scientifi- 
cally with  literature,  by  ardent  investigators  of  more 
science  than  culture.  Unfortunately,  both  acquire- 
ments are  necessary  when  one  wishes  to  differentiate 
between  the  religious  sentiments  of  an  Augustin  and  a 
Peter  Cartwright.  This  is  best  seen  in  the  total  effect 
of  Professor  Starbuck's  own  book,  in  which  the  massing 
of  cheap,  shallow  experience  causes  the  reader  to  doubt 
and  derogate  the  entire  business  of  conversion,  which 
he  would  wish  to  respect,  if  not  revere.  And,  finally, 
it  is  true  that  the  same  impediments  to  candor  and 
fullness  in  the  autobiography,  affect,  in  still  greater 


234  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

measure,  the  qicestionnaire.  This  method  is  open  to  the 
same  adverse  influences,  and  is  without  a  final  corrective 
in  the  shape  of  spontaneous  autobiographical  intention. 
In  any  estimate  of  the  forces  which  act  primarily  upon 
the  imaginations  and  emotions  of  men,  truth  can  only 
be  obtained  by  studying  these  in  their  purest  essence, 
at  work  upon  energetic  and  creative  minds. 

It  would  seem  that  any  comparative  study  of  the 
religious  confession  must  be  undertaken  within  definite 
limits;  like  compared  with  like.  Bearing  Galton's  sug- 
gestion in  mind,  autobiographies  may  be  fruitfully 
examined  for  their  attitudes  toward  the  question  of 
religious  duty  and  religious  emotion,  and  for  an  esti- 
mate of  normal  or  abnormal  characteristics  in  this  re- 
gard. Professor  James  suggests  this  when  he  points  out 
''the  enormous  diversities  which  the  spiritual  lives  of 
different  men  exhibit,"  and  when  he  maintains  that 
''the  psychology  of  individual  types  of  character  has 
hardly  begun  to  be  even  sketched  as  yet."  No  more 
fascinating  page  in  the  book  of  life  lies  open  to  us,  in 
which  he  who  runs  may  read. 

To  whatever  the  initial  impetus  over  men's  minds  is 
due,  that  religious  emotion  possesses  the  rise,*  sweep,  and 
onward  movement  of  a  wave,  is  now  generally  granted. 
Where  this  wave  starts,  how  it  passes  from  slow  to 
swift,  from  moderation  to  extreme,  from  the  bounds  of 
health  to  those  of  disease,  has  been  and  is  being  con- 
stantly the  theme  of  investigation.   The  passage  of  this 


RELIGION  235 

force  over  the  mind  and  life  of  the  self-observer  is 
plainly  traceable,  and  tends  to  link  him,  in  its  mani- 
festations, with  other  contemporary  self-observers 
submitting  to  the  same  influence.  A  group  of  religious 
confessions  forms  a  nucleus  of  forces,  —  an  eddy  in  the 
larger  current.  Personal  influence  and  imitation  cause 
such  forces  to  affect  the  minor  cases  grouped  about 
the  major,  furnishing  us  with  slighter  but  similar 
data,  slighter  but  similar  phenomena.  Thus  is  formed 
Professor  Le  Bon's  '^psychological  crowd."  The 
very  first  essential  in  the  classification  and  analysis 
of  the  religious  confession,  thus  becomes  its  grouping, 
and,  secondarily,  the  comparison  of  group  with,  group. 
Mention  has  already  been  made  of  the  freshness  and 
flexibility  of  the  early  pietistic  records,  as  contrasted 
with  the  conventionality  of  the  later  devotional  writers. 
The  most  clearly-defined  group  of  these,  the  one  which 
for  our  purpose  is  best  fitted  for  examination,  owing  to 
the  number  and  richness  of  its  cases,  is  the  Quaker 
group.  No  other  religious  movement  has  left  so  large  a 
mass  of  classified  material.  The  autobiographical  inten- 
tion with  the  early  Friends  became  a  dogma,  as  it  were, 
of  their  belief,  and  to  leave  behind  a  journal  or  an 
autobiography  was  almost  a  requirement  of  faith.  The 
Quaker  journals  form  in  themselves  a  complete  library; 
they  are  full  of  incident  and  adventure  on  land  and  sea, 
in  the  old  world  as  in  the  new;  and  they  display  upon 
every  page  qualities  of  courage  and  steadfastness,  of 


236  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

simplicity  and  kindliness,  which  move  the  heart.  ^  At  the 
same  time,  they  show  a  common  lack  of  imagination  in 
dealing  with  their  creed;  there  is  astonishingly  little 
vitality  to  their  religious  expression.  When  they  write  of 
perplexities,  of  conversion,  of  prayer,  of  meeting,  they 
all  employ  the  same  style,  the  same  terms  of  expression. 
In  such  passages  it  is  hard  to  tell  if  you  are  reading 
Woolman  or  Ellwood,  Chalkley,  Davies,  Edmundson,  or 
Crook.  Though  there  exists  the  quaintest  individuality 
in  the  character  of  these  men,  yet  the  religious  color  of 
their  minds  appears  to  be  as  uniform  and  as  dun- 
colored  as  was  the  prescribed  dress  of  their  society. 
The  stamp  of  George  Fox  is  upon  every  piece  of 
these  differing  metals,  and  we  are  led,  therefore,  back 
to  Fox's  Journal,  not  only  as  an  influential  personal 
narrative,  but  as  the  earliest  important  self-study  in 
English,  and  one  of  the  few  later  documents  which 
has  an  influence  approaching  that  of  our  three  primary 
types. 

Fox's  biographer  verifies  the  clearly  presented  image 
of  himself;  for,  although  Fox's  religious  prepossession 
is  complete,  he  lacks  none  of  the  qualities  of  the  sincere 
self-delineator.   We  have  noticed  how,  in  telling  of  his 

^  Cases  used  in  this  work:  (1)  Geo.  Fox,  (2)  Wm.  Edmund- 
son,  (3)  John  Crook,  (4)  Rich.  Davies,  (5)  Henry  Hull,  (6)  Jane 
Pearson,  (7)  Alice  Hayes,  (8)  Eliz.  Ashbridge,  (9)  Eliz.  Stiiredge, 
(10)  Oliver  Sansom,  (11)  Stephen  Crisp,  (12)  John  Woolman, 
(13)  Thos.  Ellwood,  (14)  Thos.  Chalkley,  (15)  James  Gough,  (16) 
Samuel  Bownas,  (17)  Job  Scott. 


RELIGION  237 

childhood,  he  avoids  the  factitious  element  introduced 
by  Crook,  Davies,  and  others  —  the  making  oneself  out 
to  be  a  lost  and  miserable  sinner,  for  the  sake  of  affording 
proper  contrast  to  the  later  conversion.  ''In  my  very 
young  years,  I  had  a  gravity  and  stayedness  of  mind 
and  spirit  not  usual  in  children.  .  .  .  When  I  came 
to  eleven  years  of  age  I  knew  pureness  and  righteous- 
ness, and  people  had  generally  a  love  to  me  for  my 
innocency  and  honesty."  Sentences  like  these  remind 
one  of  Teresa:  *'0n  m'a  toujours  vu  avec  plaisir";  and 
they  must  be  emphasized  to  show  the  superiority  of 
such  minds  to  mere  hterary  influences,  such  as  beset 
weaker  types.  To  listen  to  John  Bunyan  one  would  sup- 
pose that  his  youth  was  steeped  in  an  utter  villainy, 
without  a  possibility  of  goodness.  Idleness,  cursing, 
swearing,  lying,  and  blaspheming,  left  him  never  a 
moment's  freedom  from  wickedness;  and  the  same  is 
true  of  George  Whitefield.  Now,  Fox's  note  is  as  in- 
tense as  Bunyan's,  his  poignancy  greater,  his  religious 
zeal  surely  no  less;  the  difference  is  that  Fox's  power 
of  self-study  works  as  a  leaven  in  his  most  frenzied 
moments  of  fanaticism.  One  cannot  say  which  feels  the 
deeper  in  religious  matters,  but  one  can  see  plainly 
which  is  the  student  of  human  nature. 

When  we  lay  Fox  and  Augustin  side  by  side  in  these 
pages  which  deal  with  their  terrible  rehgious  upheaval 
and  conversion,  we  find  a  great  many  points  in  common 
between  the  peasant  and  the  man  of  the  world,  between 


238  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the  young  mystic  and  the  learned  sensualist.  The 
actual  phenomena  of  their  conversion  are  similar  — 
the  darkness,  the  torment,  the  inward  light,  the  inward 
voice.  But  these  brought  to  the  Bishop  peace,  to  Fox 
not  peace  but  a  sword.  He  has  that  intense  passion 
of  religious  zeal  which  never  lets  him  rest,  and  his  gift 
of  describing  this  is,  perhaps,  his  greatest  gift.  His 
prose  has  epic  moments  when  it  stops  the  heart. 

"As  I  was  walking  with  several  friends  I  lifted  up 
my  head  and  saw  three  steeple-house  spires,  and  they 
struck  at  my  life.  I  asked  them  what  place  that  was? 
They  said:  ^Litchfield.'  Immediately  the  word  of  the 
Lord  came  to  me  that  I  must  go  thither.  I  stept  away, 
and  came  within  a  mile  of  Litchfield,  where,  in  a  great 
field,  shepherds  were  keeping  their  sheep.  Then  was  I 
commanded  to  pull  off  my  shoes.  I  stood  still,  for  it  was 
winter,  and  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  like  a  fire  in  me.'' 

Undoubtedly,  it  is  to  this  gift  of  expression  of  their 
leader  that  the  Quakers  owe  their  whole  body  of  con- 
ventional rehgious  phraseology.  It  is  Fox  who  gave 
birth  to  such  idioms  as  his  ''mind  was  retired  to  the 
Lord,"  or  that  ''great  exercises  and  weights  came  upon 
me,"  or"  I  was  moved  by  the  Lord  towards  Friends 
in  the  north  of  England;"  thus  laying  upon  divine 
guidance  the  simplest  operations  of  the  wdll.  His  fol- 
lowers most  eagerly  adopted  both  the  phraseology  and 
the  spiritual  attitude  from  which  it  sprung;  with  all  that 
was  directly  owing  to  Fox's  understanding  of  others  and 


RELIGION  2S9 

of  himself.  This  utter  passivity,  this  laying  of  one's 
slightest  action  on  the  responsibility  of  God,  he  saw, 
just  as  Jeanne  de  la  Mothe-Guyon  saw  it,  to  be  the 
greatest  power  he  could  use  to  resist  persecution,  to 
harass  the  persecutor,  and  to  uphold  and  comfort  the 
spirit  of  the  persecuted.  It  gave  him  a  self-confidence 
which  permitted  him  to  use  it  in  and  out  of  season,  and 
he  notes  his  extraordinary  insight  into  the  spiritual 
condition  of  others.  Now,  all  this  is  very  like  Madame 
de  la  Mothe-Guyon,  and  one  may  pause  to  observe  why 
Quakerism  prevailed,  when  Quietism  died  still-born. 
The  reason  appears  to  be  that  Fox's  self-study  gave 
him  an  unwonted  understanding  of  the  craving  in  the 
minds  of  others,  while  Madame  Guy  on  understood  noth- 
ing about  herself,  and,  thus,  little  about  the  people  close 
to  her.  Her  preaching  had  its  effect,  but  it  is  not  the 
effect  of  Fox,  when  ''I  did  so  shake  and  shatter  them 
that  they  wondered."  Finally,  one  must  not  forget 
Fox's  fierce  and  vindictive  humility,  wherein  he  gloats 
over  difficulties  and  persecutions.  His  uneven,  over- 
charged temperament  brought  about  constant  quarrels 
with  his  friends;  while  his  analysis  of  these  disputes  and 
his  share  in  them,  shows  how  sincere  was  his  introspec- 
tion, and  what  power  it  gave  him  as  a  religious  leader 
over  the  souls  of  others. 

Every  day  we  see  about  us  examples  of  the  conven- 
tionalizing of  a  vital  phrase.  Dropped  from  the  speech 
or  writings  of  some  shrewd  and  penetrating  mind,  it  is 


240  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

seized  on  by  the  people,  incorporated  into  existing 
ideas,  attached  —  almost  as  a  technicality  —  to  the 
phraseology  of  certain  subjects.  A  humorous  case  of 
this  kind  will  occur  to  every  one  —  the  ''innocuous 
desuetude"  of  Mr.  Cleveland.  In  the  religious  life  — 
where  expression  is  to  many  persons  difficult  —  a  gift 
like  George  Fox's  of  crystallizing  the  mood,  of  vitalizing 
with  language  some  more  or  less  vague  emotion,  is 
bound  to  persist.  When  we  realize,  in  addition,  that 
the  bulk  of  his  followers  were  simple,  unlettered  folk, 
we  understand  why  they  did  not  seek  to  alter  their 
leader's  phrases.  As  it  is,  they  one  and  all  repeat  them 
without  change,  using  them  much  as  other  sects  use 
the  formulae  of  church  service.  The  effect  extended 
beyond  the  Quakers  themselves,  and  may  be  noticed, 
to  a  certain  extent,  in  later  Wesleyan  and  Methodist 
movements;  for  a  similarity  exists  through  the  whole 
religious  revival  initiated  by  the  Puritans  and  Quakers. 
Not  so  the  mediaeval  pietistic  writers;  not  so  the 
religious  minds  which  followed  the  earlier  Christians. 
There  is  no  convention  here,  but  rather  a  wonderful 
individuality;  no  possibility  is  there  of  mistaking  one 
for  another.  Augustin  provided  an  impetus,  but  he 
did  not  furnish  any  technical  vocabulary.  There  is  a 
freshness  of  feeling,  a  flexibility  of  phrase,  a  vitality, 
a  color  about  the  mediaeval  religious  confession,  which 
is  wholly  lacking  in  later  examples.  Also,  it  is  more 
personal  as  a  record;  less  concerned  with  the  outside 


RELIGION  241 

world.  The  Quaker  enthusiast  is,  first  of  all,  an  evan- 
gelist, anxious  to  convert  others  to  his  special  form  of 
belief,  and  most  occupied  with  its  increase  and  progress 
in  the  world.  His  work  lies  among  other  men.  Not 
thus  Augustin,  Paulinus,  Suso,  Guibert,  Teresa.  Their 
chief  concern  is  with  their  own  souls  and  the  phenomena 
attending  on  them;  their  interest  in  you  is  but  indirect. 
They  are  surrounded  by  marvels  and  ecstasies  of  feeling 
and  vision,  which  they  seek  to  understand.  They  pray, 
watch,  and  fast;  their  gaze  is  fixed  upon  heaven.  Small 
affair  is  it  of  theirs,  comparatively  speaking,  that  you 
should  believe.  This  subjective  intensity  becomes  a 
focus  of  religious  excitement  which  often  continues  to 
exist  as  a  point  of  force  long  after  the  death  of  the 
mystic  himself.  To  whatever  this  may  be  due, — in- 
sanity, semi-insanity,  hysteria,  says  one  camp;  divine 
manifestation,  religious  instinct,  declares  the  other,  — 
it  is,  nevertheless,  true  that  an  extreme  subjectivity 
gives  it  persistency  and  lends  it  a  literary  value.  Had 
Augustin,  had  Teresa,  spent  their  force  in  trying  to 
convert  every  street-sweeper  to  an  especial  form  of 
creed,  what  might  we  not  have  lost!  Instead,  they 
endeavored  to  place  on  record  and  to  understand  the 
working  of  certain  obscure  forces  within  themselves, 
and  the  world,  whether  of  science  or  philosophy,  is 
richer  for  the  data  they  have  preserved. 

The  autobiography  of  Teresa  of  Avila  is  particularly 
valuable  because  of  the  writer's  healthy  mental  attitude 


242  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and  undoubted  mental  vigor.  Mrs.  Bradley  Oilman,  in 
her  life  of  Teresa  (a  lay  biography),  dwells  on  the 
humanness  and  womanliness  of  her  personality.  It  is 
not  as  a  theologian,  not  as  a  mystic,  that  she  appeals 
chiefly  to  us  to-day;  it  is  rather  as  a  vital,  energetic, 
and  complete  woman,  intellectual  enough  to  protest  in 
her  preface  against  the  mandate  of  her  confessor  that 
she  was  to  enter  into  full  details  of  the  Lord's  grace 
toward  her,  but  as  to  her  own  sins  to  maintain  an 
extreme  reserve.  This,  she  declares,  was  not  possible; 
she  carries  her  candor  to  the  point  of  omitting  no 
data  which  permit  us  to  comprehend  her  case.  A  long 
illness  and,  during  convalescence,  a  volume  of  Augustin 
—  thus  this  enthusiastic  and  emotional  creature  is  set 
upon  the  way  of  mysticism.  Up  to  this  time  her  con- 
vent life  had  been  lax,  her  piety  but  formal;  she  had 
experienced  an  unhappy  love-affair,  and  had  been  ro- 
mantically interested  in  one  of  her  confessors.  But  now 
the  high  current  of  her  vitality  is  all  turned  inward; 
she  begins  to  live  inwardly  alone.  The  outer  world 
fades  and  is  dim,  a  mystic  world  opens.  The  phe- 
nomena at  first  are  slight.  "J'etais  tout-a-coup  saisie 
du  sentiment  de  la  presence  de  Dieu,"  she  says  simply, 
adding,  ''Ce  n'etait  pas  une  vision."  But  the  visions 
did  not  delay,  and,  under  the  favoring  physical  and 
surrounding  conditions,  Teresa  passes  onward,  step 
by  step,  from  ecstasy  to  vision  and  to  hallucination. 
Exhausting  reactions  follow:  she  battles  horribly  with 


RELIGION  e43 

the  demon,  who  stuns  her  ears  with  blasphemies,  or 
affrights  her  in  the  shape  of  "  a>  Uttle  negro  all  of  flame." 
With  Madame  Guy  on  this  phantom  becomes  "  a  horrible, 
devilish  face  in  a  bluish  light."  Unseen  hands,  Teresa 
believes,  lift  her  from  the  earth;  Satan  in  person  pinches 
Madame  Guyon.  There  is  nothing  unusual  about  all  this, 
as  the  neurologist  assures  us.  The  unusual  fact  about 
Teresa  is  that  she  continues  to  preserve  so  high  a  degree 
of  practical  energy  and  executive  ability.  Apart  from 
her  mysticism,  she  is  a  woman  of  intellect,  healthy 
vigor,  and  healthy  imagination,  not  without  humor;  all 
her  actions  show  practical  common-sense.  She  looks 
carefully  to  the  sanitary  conditions  of  her  new  convent 
at  Avila,  and  to  the  health  of  its  inmates;  she  writes 
alert  and  interesting  letters;  she  carefully  nurses  a  sick 
relative,  over  whom  most  mystics  would  have  merely 
prayed;  she  reads  a  great  deal,  and  not  only  theology. 
She  stands  before  us,  not  in  any  sense  distorted,  or 
abnormal,  or  diseased  physically,  and  as  such  she  stands 
alone  in  the  annals  of  hagiography. 

The  case  approaching  nearest  to  Teresa  in  this  re- 
spect is  that  of  Patrick,  for  the  Confessio  Patricius  can 
only  be  the  outpouring  of  a  genuine  and  healthy  soul. 
Writing  early  enough  to  have  come  under  the  direct 
influence  of  Augustin  and  Paulinus,  Patrick  evidently 
feels  the  contrast  of  his  rustic,  Celtic  illiteracy.  Hu- 
mility is  his  key-note,  simple  and  sincere.  ''The  rudest 
and  least  of  all  the  faithful,  and  most  contemptible  to 


244  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

very  many/'  he  terms  himself.  "I  blush  .  .  .  and 
greatly  fear  to  expose  my  unskilfulness  ...  I  cannot 
express  myself  with  clearness  and  brevity/'  these 
shamefaced  phrases  are  in  sharp  contrast  with  Augus- 
tin's  lyrical  and  literary  outpourings,  or  the  exalted 
security  of  Teresa.  But  Patrick,  though  humble,  is 
steadfast  over  what  he  calls  his  "drivel";  he  presents 
a  clear  and  touching  picture  of  a  young  convert, 
fasting,  praying,  herding  cattle  in  the  wilderness  of 
Britain,  and  harkening  to  the  voice  which  directed  him 
to  Ireland.  The  supernatural  side  of  his  experiences 
follows  hard  on  the  fasting  period;  but  Patrick  is, 
throughout  this  fragment,  the  practical  missionary, 
rather  than  the  mystic. 

Teresa  and  Patrick  are  sporadic  cases  of  mystical 
development;  there  appears  to  have  been  no  hereditary 
predisposition,  and  no  markedly  sufficient  surrounding 
causes.  The  case  of  Guibert  de  Nogent  is  valuable 
exactly  on  the  other  count.  Few  records  furnish  so 
illuminating  an  example  of  hereditary  and  environ- 
mental religious  influences.  Professor  James  speaks  of 
states  of  mysticism  as  states  purely  individual  and  in- 
dependent, produced  inwardly  by  pious  emotion,  un- 
connected with  exterior  circumstances.  He  cites  the 
case  of  Teresa  which,  as  we  see,  supports  his  theory. 
The  modern  French  school,  on  the  other  hand,  treating 
mysticism  as  disease,  might  well  cite  Guibert  and 
Henry  Suso  in  support  of  theirs.   The  family  of  Guibert 


RELIGION  245 

(who  was  born  in  1053  and  lived  until  1124)  was  steeped 
in  piety,  and  took  mysticism  for  granted,  as  other 
families  accept  a  tendency  to  asthma.  The  hysteria  of 
their  religious  feeling  had  warped  every  relation  in  life; 
it  kept  Guibert's  parents,  sincerely  attached  to  each 
other,  apart  for  years  after  their  marriage.  At  eight 
years  old,  Guibert  was  abandoned  by  his  mother,  who 
left  him  to  go  into  a  convent;  she  had  previously  disci- 
plined him  with  blows  to  conquer  the  old  Adam  in  him, 
and  so  nearly  terminated  his  little  life.  Yet  she  was  a 
tender,  a  devoted  mother,  whose  health  suffered  from 
her  necessary  severity.  She  is  described  as  a  person 
who  in  daily  life  walked  close  to  the  borders  of  the 
unknown.  She  dreamed  dreams,  saw  visions,  experi- 
enced miracles,  was  frequently  transported  out  of  the 
body.  She  complained  of  personal  battling  with  de- 
mons, as  you  and  I  might  complain  of  dyspepsia. 
On  one  occasion,  during  a  physical  struggle  with  the 
devil,  her  good  angel  came  to  her  assistance,  "et  le 
renversa,  avec  un  tel  fracas  que  sa  chute  ebranla  violem- 
ment  la  chambre,  et  reveilla  les  servantes  accablees  par 
le  sommeil." 

There  is  no  suggestion  in  her  son's  account  that  all 
this  was  extraordinary  or  unusual.  No  physician  came 
to  see  Guibert 's  mother;  nobody  advised  her  exhausted 
family  to  put  her  into  a  rest-cure,  nor  did  any  one 
operate  for  adenoids.  The  boy,  whom  she  leaves  at 
this  tender  age,  was  intelligent  and  badly  nourished. 


246  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Is  it  remarkable  that  he  should  decide  at  twelve  years 
old  to  retire  also  to  a  monastery,  that  he  might  repent 
"les  desordres  de  la  jeunesse''?  Visions,  voices,  de- 
spairs follow.  His  fervor,  says  Guibert  naively,  '' exces- 
sively irritated  the  devil,"  who  had  been  previously 
greatly  annoyed  by  his  mother's  prayers  and  macera- 
tions. The  two,  mother  and  son,  glorying  in  the  trouble 
they  are  giving  to  the  king  of  evil,  keep  the  excite- 
ment at  a  high  pitch  by  an  interchange  of  letters 
and  messages.  With  all  this,  he  was  a  man  of  deli- 
cate literary  taste  and  sound  historical  method,  as  is 
shown  by  his  Histoire  des  Croisades.  A  poet,  too,  he 
yet  felt  poetry  to  be  an  especial  snare  of  the  evil  one. 
''Quelquefois  je  composais  des  petits  ecrits  oil  il  n'y 
avait  ni  sagesse  ni  retenue,  ou  meme  ne  se  trouvait 
aucun  sentiment  honnete,"  he  avows  sadly,  in  the 
naive  phrase  preserved  from  the  Latin  original  by  the 
French  translator. 

The  life  of  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso,  written  by  him- 
self, deals  much  less  with  the  personal  development  of 
the  writer  than  either  Teresa  or  Guibert.  That  his 
mother  was  pious  and  his  father  worldly,  that  his 
childhood  was  joyously  devout,  so  that  he  never 
plucked  a  flower  without  in  spirit  offering  it  to  the 
Blessed  Virgin,  and  that  he  took  the  vows  at  thirteen, 
is  all  we  are  told.  There  is  evidence  to  show  that  at 
the  time  of  Suso's  real  conversion,  five  years  later,  he 
was  merely  a  youth  of  exceptional  imagination,  a  tender 


RELIGION  247 

heart,  and  a  high  and  joyous  exaltation  in  religious 
matters.  At  the  beginning  this  sense  of  joyousness  is 
paramount,  the  visions  are  beautiful,  the  dreams  serene; 
he  hears  the  morning  stars  sing  together,  and  he  has  a 
healthy  sense  of  happiness.  But  the  monastic  rule  and 
ideals  do  not  encourage  joyousness  in  piety;  and  Suso 
soon  begins  to  feel  uneasy  at  his  own  cheerfulness.  He 
begins  then,  out  of  his  sincerely  religious  feeling,  to  mor- 
tify the  flesh,  to  scourge  his  young  body,  to  torment 
himself;  ''and  that  way  madness  lies."  Twenty  years 
later  we  find  him  suffering  from  ''heaviness  of  spirit," 
"inordinate  fear,"  "certainty  of  damnation."  "Im- 
pious imaginations  against  the  faith,"  and  a  hideous 
delusion  of  devils,  have  replaced  the  singing  stars,  wor- 
shiping flowers,  and  kind,  angelic  visitors  of  his  bojdsh 
visions.  If  anything  more  were  wanting  to  make  this 
change  and  condition  significant,  it  is  Suso's  own  state- 
ment that  the  wounds  and  torments  of  his  self-inflicted 
tortures  "had  broken  down  his  bodily  frame."  The 
narrow  border-land  between  overcharged  imagination 
and  unbalanced  imagination  is  traversed  under  the 
reader's  very  eyes. 

That  this  state  of  mystical  excitement  was  individual, 
is  demonstrable  when  we  compare  the  experiences  of 
Guibert  or  Suso  with  that  common-sense  record  left  by 
Brother  Salimbene  di  Adamo.  Healthy  in  body  and 
mind,  this  Franciscan  friar  is  converted  at  twelve  years 
old;  during  the  great  Alleluia,  and  at  once  takes  up  a  life 


248  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  hard,  practical,  missionary  work,  as  far  removed  as 
possible  from  mysticism.  Salimbene's  autobiography  is 
purely  an  objective  chronicle;  its  interest  for  us  lies  only 
in  the  fact  of  its  displaying  the  other  point  of  view. 
The  only  miracles  in  Salimbene  are  the  bogus  miracles 
of  the  friars  minor;  the  only  vision  is  seen  by  him  in  a 
dream,  during  which  the  Blessed  Virgin  lets  the  young 
monk  hold  in  his  arms  the  Holy  Child.  When  the 
vision  vanished,  Salimbene  says:  "In  my  heart  re- 
mained so  great  sweetness  as  tongue  could  never  tell 
.  .  .  never  in  this  world  had  I  such  sweetness  as  that"; 
but  he  does  not  attempt  to  suggest  that  this  vision  was 
other  than  a  dream.  Salimbene,  indeed,  is  the  type  of 
mediaeval,  personal  historian  who,  though  a  religious, 
does  not  leave  a  religious  confession;  in  his  exposure  of 
the  crude,  charlatan  methods  of  the  preaching  friars, 
his  pages  are  worthy  to  be  laid,  as  commentary,  beside 
those  of  a  Guibert,  Suso,  Teresa. 

There  is  much  in  common  between  the  Abbe  Guibert 
and  Cardinal  Bellarmin,  whose  learning  made  him  the 
wonder  of  Europe.  Bellarmin  also  had  a  pious  mother, 
given  to  fasting  and  to  flagellation,  who  destined  her 
five  sons  to  the  priesthood.  Already  at  five  or  six  years 
of  age  the  child  had  preached  on  Jesus'  suffering;  and 
at  fifteen  this  oratorical  talent  was  given  its  first  public 
exhibition.  Bellarmin,  however,  has  the  serenity  of  the 
savant,  and  he  is  not  like  the  Abb^,  perpetually  con- 
cerned about  the  opinion  of  Satan.   His  life,  written  in 


RELIGION  249 

his  seventy-second  year  to  oblige  a  Jesuit  friend,  is 
placed  in  the  third  person,  and,  although  the  life  dis- 
tinctly of  a  religious,  is  full  of  secular  detail.  His 
health,  which  was  injured  by  over-work,  his  attainments 
in  rhetoric  and  languages,  are  dwelt  upon,  as  well 
as  his  supernatural  adventures  and  prophecies.  More- 
over, Bellarmin  has  the  Italian  interest  in,  and  ob- 
servation of,  his  mental  processes;  self-study  had  a 
fascination  for  him,  for  he  tells  us  of  a  destroyed  poem 
on  himself  which  was  composed  at  sixteen.  His  mys- 
tical attitude,  indeed,  hke  that  of  Teresa,  dated  defi- 
nitely from  an  illness  of  three  years'  duration,  and 
was  established  upon  a  mental  and  bodily  habit  of 
fundamental  sanity. 

Bellarmin,  although  he  gives  an  account  of  this  illness 
from  his  nineteenth  to  his  twenty-second  year,  fails,  of 
course,  to  connect  it  with  his  outburst  of  piety.  In 
truth,  so  many  of  these  witnesses  furnish  us  all  uncon- 
sciously with  the  means  to  understand  what  is  veiled 
and  mysterious  to  themselves.  In  these  just  cited,  note 
the  clues  which  are  scattered  over  the  page.  Rare  is  the 
case  in  which  we  may  not  find  the  mot  d'enigme.  Augus- 
tin's  life  of  dissipation  and  its  profound  reaction  on  his 
mental  condition;  the  solitude  and  fasting  of  Patrick; 
the  change  in  Suso's  mysticism;  the  illness,  at  so  critical 
an  age,  of  Bellarmin,  Teresa,  and  Madame  Guyon;  the 
heredity  and  surroundings  of  Guibert  —  all  these  are 
keys  for  us.   Sometimes  the  causes  are  still  more  direct. 


250  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

That  quaint  and  discreet  divine,  Robert  Blair,  has  given 
an  account  of  his  conversion,  which  is  one  of  the  most 
curious  and  significant  in  all  religious  history,  and  con- 
tains as  striking  an  example  of  "misinterpreted  observa- 
tion" as  that  halo  of  Cellini,  so  ingeniously  explained 
by  Symonds.  Blair  was  a  little  lad  of  seven  when  first 
he  was  troubled  by  great  thoughts.  "Upon  a  Lord's 
Day,  being  left  alone  in  the  house  through  indisposition, 
the  Lord  caused  my  conscience  to  reflect  upon  me  with 
this  query,  *  Wherefore  servest  thou,  unprofitable  crea- 
ture?' I,  not  being  able  to  answer,  looking  out  the 
window,  saw  the  sun  brightly  shining,  and  a  cow  with 
a  full  udder."  Little  lonely  child,  how  the  picture  stirs 
one!  " I  went  pensively  up  and  down  that  gallery  where 
I  was."  After  this  experience,  "  I  durst  never  play  upon 
the  Lord's  Day,"  he  tells  us,  even  when  told  to  do  so,  for 
his  health's  sake,  by  his  kindly  schoolmaster.  Here  are 
already  two  significant  references  to  physical  condi- 
tions; but  more  is  to  come.  At  college  this  frail  and 
serious  boy  comes  under  the  spell  of  Augustin's  Con- 
fessions; but  his  real  conversion  occurs  when  "I  met 
with  a  most  rare  and  admirable  mercy,  somewhat  of  the 
joy  that  is  unspeakable  and  glorious."  Briefly  told, 
Blair  pays  a  visit  to  a  sick  friend,  whom  he  finds  com- 
pounding a  milk-posset  with  wine.  Urged  to  partake, 
young  Blair  does  so  "heartily,"  he  says,  though  he  was 
unused  to  wine.  He  fell  at  once  into  a  fever  of  religious 
ecstasy  and  vision,  which  he  never  once  attributes  to 


RELIGION  251 

the  posset.  During  this  condition,  "in  the  great  glad- 
ness and  exulting  of  my  spirit  I  extolled  my  Lord  and 
Saviour,  yea,  I  sang  unto  him"  all  night,  until  ''the 
vehemency  of  my  rejoicing  abated."  One  could  wish  it 
in  one's  heart  that  all  college  possets  had  so  innocently 
uphfting  an  effect ! 

Closely  examined,  the  case  of  Blair  bears  all  the 
typical  features  of  the  mystical  phenomenon;  it  shows 
the  error  of  isolating  these  phenomena  from  the  text;  it 
is  enough  to  maintain  that  the  only  convincing  way  to 
study  them  is  to  omit  no  fact,  however  trifling,  from  the 
whole  case.  It  will  be  noticed  that,  in  each  of  the  re- 
ligious excitements  already  mentioned,  facts  have  been 
established  sufficient  to  show  the  starting-point  of  the 
disturbance.  In  each  example  there  was  the  predisposi- 
tion of  a  devout  and  serious  nature,  and  in  each  ex- 
ample the  mystical  phenomena,  the  ecstasies,  visions, 
voices,  begin  after  a  physical  strain.  So  much  for  five 
major  cases:  but  how  stand  the  minor? 

The  Rev.  Henry  Alhne,  a  Nova  Scotian  preacher,  in 
1784,  had  visions  and  despairs  of  unusual  vividness. 
He  notes  that  he  spent  a  solitary  and  terrified  childhood 
between  the  fear  of  Indians  and  of  hell-fire,  and  that  at 
fourteen  a  long,  severe  illness  left  him  indifferent  to  life. 
He  notes,  also,  dissipation  and  extremely  late  hours. 
His  visions  began  at  nineteen.  He  is  dead,  of  a  "de- 
cline," at  thirty-six. 

Such  Quaker  autobiographical  journals  as  those  of 


252  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Alice  Hayes,  Elizabeth  Stirredge,  Job  Scott,  John  Wool- 
man,  Stephen  Crisp,  are  very  full  on  the  question  of 
explanatory  physical  conditions.  Conversely,  it  is  in- 
teresting to  read  that  the  similar  journals  of  Thomas 
Ellwood,  of  Thomas  Chalkley,  of  Richard  Davies,  and 
of  Samuel  Bownas  make  mention  of  good  and  even 
physical  health;  and,  although  they  experience  strong 
religious  feeling,  meditations,  exercises,  yet,  as  in  the 
case  of  Salimbene,  there  are  no  miracles.  The  powerful 
frame  and  vigorous  personality  of  George  Whitefield, 
undergo,  according  to  his  Short  Account,  the  most 
violent  religious  stress,  but  his  experiences  are  quite 
unmystical.  Three  ardent  seventeenth-century  Scots, 
John  Livingstone,  William  Pringle,  James  Fraser  of 
Brae,  observe  of  themselves  that  they  underwent  no 
special  conversion  experiences.  All  three  had  a  normal 
physical  development. 

Data  in  the  case  of  John  Crook,  John  Dunton,  and 
John  Bunyan,  appear,  on  the  whole,  to  be  pathological. 
Conversion  brought  no  steady  peace  to  Bunyan's  mind; 
he  still  underwent  tumults  and  melancholies.  Describ- 
ing one  of  these  moods,  when  'Hhere  fell  on  me  a  great 
cloud  of  darkness  ...  I  was  so  overrun  in  my  soul 
with  a  senseless,  heartless  frame  of  spirit,  ^^  Bunyan  goes 
on  to  say:  ''At  this  time  also  I  felt  some  weakness  to 
seize  upon  my  outward  man."  There  is  a  similar  full- 
ness in  the  later  statement  of  Blanco  White.  In  the 
autobiography  of  Peter  Cartwright  (which  is  the  only 


RELIGION  253 

autobiography  from  which  Professor  Starbuck  deigns 
to  quote,  and  which,  by  the  way,  is  almost  wholly  an 
objective  narrative),  a  violent  physical  crisis  precedes 
conversion,  with  rush  of  blood  to  the  head,  palpitations 
and  temporary  blindness.  This  attack  is  the  starting- 
point  of  Cartwright's  whole  religious  life,  and  directly 
responsible  for  his  sense  of  sin  and  subsequent  struggle 
and  conversion. 

Let  no  one  suppose  that  these  instances  are  quoted 
here  for  the  mere  purpose  of  repeating  that  physical 
causes  lie  back  of  religious  mania.  They  are  cited,  rather, 
to  show  how  much  more  the  religious  confession  yields 
the  investigator  than  he  has,  so  far,  been  willing  to 
allow;  and  also  how  much  injustice  he  may  do  by  isola- 
ting single  passages.  Comparative  study  of  the  religious 
autobiography  may  lead  to  certain  conclusions,  but  it 
must  be,  necessarily,  a  study  of  complete  documents. 
However  convinced  these  mystics  are  of  the  divine 
origin  of  their  experiences,  the  autobiographical  inten- 
tion, in  most  cases,  urges  them  to  give  all  the  facts;  and 
it  is  precisely  in  all  the  facts  that  the  value  lies.  Pro- 
fessor James  observes  that  ''the  religious  life  exclusively 
pursued  does  tend  to  make  the  person  exceptional  and 
eccentric  .  .  .  and  to  present  all  sorts  of  peculiarities 
which  are  ordinarily  classed  as  pathological."  Joseph 
Grasset,  writing  distinctly  on  the  pathological  side, 
thinks  it  more  accurately  said  that  ''religious  ideas  may 
be  the  starting  point  or  the  manifestation  of  certain 


254  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

disturbances.'^  These  he  groups  under  two  heads:  "1, 
diseased  exaggeration  of  the  religious  idea;  2,  perversion 
of  the  religious  idea. "  In  neither  of  these  two  volumes 
is  any  notice  taken  of  those  cases  where  these  same 
mystical  phenomena  occur  wholly  unconnected  with 
religion.  What  does  one  make  of  conversions  to  free- 
thought,  such  as  William  Bell  Scott's,  which  presents 
the  definite  and  typical  features  of  religious  conversion 
without  the  belief?  A  somewhat  similar  experience  was 
undergone  by  Annie  Besant.  Cardan  described  —  with 
his  usual  scientific  accuracy  —  a  repeated  condition  of 
mystical  ecstasy  in  connection  with  studies  in  higher 
mathematics  and  Greek.  A  similar  experience  was 
Jung  Stilling's  with  regard  to  the  same  language. 
The  ''burning  flashes  of  energy"  which  transfixed  poor 
Haydon  at  his  easel,  is  almost  the  exact  phrase  used 
by  Teresa. 

Ernest  Renan  found  that  sense  of  uplifted  security, 
that  deep,  inner  peace  and  radiance,  of  which  Professor 
James  makes  so  much,  only  when  he  left  the  church 
and  became  a  confirmed  agnostic.  Blanco  White,  after 
breaking  with  creed  ideas,  observes:  ''In  the  constant 
watch  I  have  kept  over  my  imagination,  I  have  observed 
a  sort  of  reverie  —  sometimes  on  important  subjects  — 
sometimes  on  most  ridiculous  trifles  —  but  always  ac- 
companied by  a  painful  degree  of  abstraction  from  the 
senses." 

Capel-Lofft  says:  "Almost  all  of  the  active  powers  of 


RELIGION  255 

my  mind  have  come  upon  me  thus  suddenly  like  mo- 
ments of  grace,"  and  gives  details. 

Chateaubriand,  Lamartine,  and  Sir  Egerton  Brydges, 
in  describing  ecstasies  of  poetical  imagination  and  com- 
position, use  a  succession  of  terms  and  phrases  which 
might  well  stand  for  the  diagnosis  of  a  state  of  religious 
mysticism.^ 

Apart  from  all  abnormal  or  extreme  ideas,  or  mystical 
conditions,  the  religious  attitude  of  healthy  and  normal 
people  holds  for  us  the  most  helpful  sides  of  congen- 
iality and  of  difference.  Since  nothing  in  the  world  is 
more  important,  it  is  rarely  omitted  from  the  sincere 
personal  record.  The  diversity  of  view  mentioned  by 
Professor  James  is  thus  made  more  apparent.  No  doubt, 
in  looking  here  and  there  among  these  witnesses  of  the 
past,  you  and  I  wUl  find  light  on  our  special  difficulty, 
on  our  particular  doubt,  on  our  dogmatic  certainty. 
An  interchange  of  views  on  the  subject  of  religion  — 
where  it  can  be  made  without  heat  —  is  one  of  the  most 
fruitful  interchanges  in  the  intellectual  life.  Many  of 
us  to-day  are  of  that  utilitarian  cast  of  mind  concern- 
ing this  topic  whereof  Franklin  was  the  larger  exponent; 
others  hold  the  whole  subject  to  be  a  little  in  the  air,  as 

^  Prof.  Starbuck  notices  some  half-dozen  cases  in  which 
awakenings  bearing  the  typical  features  of  religious  conversion 
occurred  in  connection  with  comparatively  trivial  causes;  such 
as  (1)  confessing  a  fault  to  a  parent,  (2)  deciding  about  education, 
(3)  breaking  a  friendship,  (4,  5,  6,  7)  sudden  ability  to  sing,  play 
the  piano,  ride  a  bicycle,  study  physics. 


266  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

did  de  Retz  or  Talleyrand :  there  are  still  the  simply 
pious,  and  the  fiercely  pious,  and  those  whose  very  souls 
are  dyed,  like  that  of  Ernest  Renan,  in  a  hue  the  intelli- 
gence has  abjured. 

As  a  whole,  women  appear  to  be  less  interested  in 
the  subject  than  men,  although  they  are  equally  in- 
tense as  mystics,  equally  militant  as  sectarians,  and, 
strange  though  it  may  seem,  equally  serene  and  power- 
ful as  agnostics.  Teresa,  Madame  Guyon,  and  Harriet 
Martineau  are  quintessential  of  their  kind.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  great  ladies  we  encounter:  Marguerite 
de  Valois,  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier,  her  step- 
mother, Madame  Mere  du  Regent,  the  two  Mancinis, 
Hortense  and  Marie,  the  Princess  Daschkaw,  Leonora 
Christina  Ulfeldt  —  these  omit  more  than  the  conven- 
tional references  to  religion,  although  they  went  regu- 
larly to  church.  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier  had  a 
brief  period  of  yearning  toward  a  convent,  but  it  was 
very  brief.  Catherine  II  says  of  her  own  early  dis- 
position: ''I  had  no  affection;  ambition  alone  sustained 
me.  Generally  speaking,  I  was  inclined  to  devotion." 
Later,  she  turns  Voltairean,  and  avows  that  Tacitus 
had  more  influence  over  her  life  than  any  religious 
sentiment.  The  Margravine  of  Bareith  has  left  an 
autobiography  of  extraordinary  vividness  and  value. 
The  sordid  and  hideous  pictures  which  fill  her  canvas 
are  unsoftened  by  any  lights  and  shades  of  real 
tenderness  or  of  real  piety.    No  daughter  of  a  hod- 


RELIGION  257 

carrier  had  surroundings  more  brutal,  or  an  existence 
more  dominated  by  the  insane  caprices  of  a  drunken 
father,  than  this  child  and  sister  of  kings.  If  lacking 
in  sentiment  or  emotion,  she  is  yet  a  woman  of  an 
advanced  intelligence  in  serious  matters,  approving 
"ceux  qui  font  une  etude  de  rechercher  la  verite,"  as 
she  puts  it.  ''Je  suis  meme  convaincue  que  les  per- 
sonnes  qui  s'accoutument  h  reflechir  ne  peuvent  qu'etre 
vertueuses,"  she  maintains,  and  the  conviction  has  a 
modern  ring. 

Certain  types  of  intellectual  and  moral  vigor  show 
small  traces  of  any  definite  religious  influence.  Alfieri, 
whose  life  is  the  noble  record  of  struggle  and  triumph 
over  an  unusually  violent  and  unbridled  nature,  accom- 
pHshed  his  ethical  advance  absolutely  without  the  aid  of 
any  religious  feeling.  A  high  seriousness  takes  the  place 
of  religion  in  the  lives  of  Darwin,  of  John  Stuart  Mill, 
of  Herbert  Spencer;  indeed,  a  high  ethical  tone,  uncon- 
nected with  any  creed  idea,  is  the  marked  characteristic 
of  this  group  as  a  whole.  Benjamin  Franklin  declares 
himself  free  from  dogma, —  ''revelation  had  indeed  no 
weight  with  me,  as  such,"  but  he  never  entirely  breaks 
with  the  church.  His  attitude  of  constant  apology  for 
his  intellectual  independence,  is  jarring  to  our  modern 
ideas.  To  Benvenuto  Cellini  religion  is  inseparably 
bound  up  with  art;  and  what  religious  feeling  exists 
is  called  mto  play  only  by  beauty.  Notwithstanding 
his  immorality  and  general  materialism,  these  feelings 


258  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

in  him  are  keen  and  of  high  quality.  To  Goldoni,  to 
Gozzi,  in  eighteenth-century  Italy,  the  Church  is 
simply  an  easy  convention  —  there  is  no  trace  of 
religious  vitality  in  their  lives.  How  different  from 
poor  Haydon,  who  dwells  upon  that  ''crystal  piety 
of  feeling"  with  deep-breathed  prayers,  in  an  inten- 
sity of  earnestness!  Cardan,  as  we  have  seen,  keeps 
the  religious  convention  and  superstition,  while  his 
thought  is  advanced  and  free.  He  feels  most  religious 
while  at  work. 

Whatever  else  she  may  have  concealed,  George  Sand 
has  presented  the  most  convincing  picture  of  her  re- 
ligious development.  Like  other  imaginative  children, 
she  created  her  own  deity,  named  it  Coramhe,  and  dedi- 
cated to  its  worship  a  little  grove  apart.  A  most  in- 
teresting evolution  of  the  religious  nature  is  depicted 
in  these  chapters,  which  for  suggestiveness  are  worth 
volumes  on  fetish-worship  and  demonology.^  Later  in 
her  life,  work  becomes  her  religion.  Among  those  whose 
intellectual  serenity  never  demanded  a  sacrifice  of 
creed,  the  good  Morellet  lived  secure,  always  an  abbe, 
yet  conscious,  as  he  says,  that  ''La  raison,  obscurcie 
par  I'education  des  colleges  et  des  seminaires,  reprend 
bien  vite  ses  droits  sur  les  esprits  justes."  This  type 
of  mind  is  still  more  familiar  to-day. 

^  George  Sand  receives  corroboration  from  Edmund  Gosse  in 
his  recent  book,  "Father  and  Son."  The  boy  appears  to  have 
lived  several  years  of  fetish-worship  very  similar  to  George 
Sand's. 


RELIGION  259 

Change  in  belief  is  one  of  the  most  frequent  causes 
for  the  autobiography,  which  thus  becomes  an  apologia, 
in  Newman's  sense  of  the  word.  His  Apologia  pro  Vita 
Sua,  and  the  very  curious  and  suggestive  state  of  mind 
which  it  presents,  are  too  well  known  for  further  com- 
ment. It  may,  however,  be  fruitfully  compared  with 
a  similar  document,  the  Munquidh  min  ad-dalal  of 
Al  Ghazzali,^  which  has  been  translated  from  the  Ara- 
bic into  French  by  Barbier  de  Meynard,  under  the 
title  Le  Preservatif  de  VErreur.  This  serious  religious 
self-examination  forms  the  more  strictly  autobiographi- 
cal part  of  the  Arabian's  philosophical  work,  wherein 
the  author,  at  twenty,  sets  himself  *'to  discover  truth, 
to  separate  error,  to  interrogate  each  dogma,  and  to 
determine  heresy."  "The  search  for  truth,"  he  main- 
tains, "is  the  end  which  I  pursue."  Al  Ghazzali  goes 
through  all  the  torments  of  religious  and  intellectual 
doubt,  followed  by  a  prolonged  physical  and  nervous 
prostration;  whence  he  emerges  as  a  sufi,  and  ends 
his  days  in  a  mosque.  A  somewhat  similar  trend  in 
the  life  of  the  Sheikh  Ali  5azin  has  the  opposite  and 
significant  termination  in  an  intellectual  rather  than 
a  religious  serenity.  Ali  Hazin  says  also:  "I  now  felt 
a  desire  to  inform  myself  on  the  questions  and  truths 
of  different  religions,  including  Christians  and  Jews." 
But  this  investigation  simply  leads  him  to  freedom 
from  all  dogma  and  to  peace  of  mind. 

^  Recently  translated  into  English. 


260  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Similar  is  the  progress  of  Harriet  Martineau  toward 
an  uplifted  tranquillity.  "Christians  can  never  be  se- 
cure," she  maintains;  and  after  receiving  sentence  of 
death,  she,  too,  like  the  Persian  sage,  "sat,  listening 
for  the  note  of  departure." 

Not  always  is  the  serenity  on  the  side  of  the  free- 
thinker. We  must  not  forget  the  case  of  Uriel  d'Acosta, 
whose  successive  changes  of  belief  brought  him  but  suc- 
cessive humiliations.  Chateaubriand,  too,  gives  many 
pages  to  his  change  of  view.  His  first  work,  the  Essai, 
was  sceptic;  but  the  death  of  his  mother,  embittered  by 
this  fact,  causes  a  revolution,  and  he  starts  the  Genie 
du  Christianisme  as  an  expiatory  offering.  This  shift, 
therefore,  is  due  primarily  to  emotion.  Another  docu- 
ment dealing  with  an  alteration  of  ideas  was  written 
by  James  Lackington,  the  London  bookseller.  An  ener- 
getic, industrious,  self-educated  man,  Lackington  in 
youth  was  converted  by  Wesley  to  Methodism;  re- 
tracted in  middle-age  and  became  sceptical,  only  to 
return  more  violently  than  ever  in  his  latter  years. 
Each  turn  he  discusses  with  conviction.  During  his 
lapse  from  grace  he  speaks  thus  of  his  wife's  death: 
"She  died  in  a  fit  of  enthusiastic  rant,  surrounded  by 
Methodistical  preachers."  This  unsympathetic  atti- 
tude he  bitterly  repents:  "I  shudder  to  see  what  I  have 
done.  I  have  wantonly  sported  with  the  most  solemn 
and  precious  truths!"  But  he  publishes  the  book,  with 
all  these  changes,  intact. 


RELIGION  261 

Changes  of  faith  shown  during  progress  are  rare. 
A  curious  one  is  that  of  Comte  Lomenie  de  Brienne, 
another  memoiriste,  the  son  of  the  upright  minister 
of  Henri  IV.  He  is  a  person  vibrating  to  the  ex- 
tremes of  vice  and  of  religion.  During  his  pious  moods 
he  composes  "des  petits  cantiques  de  devotion  sur 
les  aires  du  monde."  No  sooner  is  he  a  member  of  a 
monastic  community  than  he  repents  the  step;  and  the 
scandal  of  his  conduct,  now  priest,  now  debauchee, 
caused  him  first  to  be  exiled,  and  then  placed  under 
restraint.  Though  he  writes  his  memoire  at  St.  Lazare, 
where  he  had  lived  for  eighteen  years,  it  is  a  singularly 
well-balanced  account  of  religious  caprice;  to  the  end 
he  is  said  to  have  retained  his  memory  and  *^Vart  de 
raconter." 

One  could  wish  that  Gibbon  had  given  us  a  fuller 
account  of  his  conversion  to  Catholicism,  and  the  re- 
bound to  free  thought.  We  know  little  save  that  he 
w^ent  to  Oxford  ''with  a  stock  of  erudition  that  might 
have  puzzled  a  doctor,  and  a  degree  of  ignorance  of 
which  a  school-boy  would  have  been  ashamed."  A 
nature  throwing  itself  violently  into  different  creeds  is 
drawn  in  the  Autobiography  of  Annie  Besant,  Be- 
ginning as  an  orthodox  member  of  the  English  Church, 
she  swerves  toward  Romanism  and  mysticism,  reacts 
into  a  profound  atheism,  and  drops  this  after  a  time 
for  theosophy  and  Madame  Blavatsky.  This  is,  how- 
ever, more  a  case  of  successive  personal  influences  act- 


262  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ing  on  a  nature  particularly  susceptible  to  personal 
leadership,  and  gifted  in  itself  with  a  talent  for  becom- 
ing a  disciple.  It  is  worth  noting,  because  it  shows 
an  unusual  development  in  a  rather  common  type  of 
ardent  female  hero-worshipper. 

The  well-known  modern  case  of  Count  Leo  Tolstoi 
shares  many  of  the  more  striking  features  of  the  classi- 
cal individual  confession.  Very  marked  is  the  Russian's 
self-depreciation  before  his  conversion;  his  self-accusa- 
tions equal  in  intensity  those  of  Augustin  or  Bunyam 
*' Falsehood,  theft,  voluptuousness  of  every  kind, 
drunkenness,  violence,  murder, —  there  is  no  crime  I 
have  not  committed,  and  yet  they  count  me  among 
the  number  of  men  relatively  moral!"  he  exclaims 
fiercely,  in  an  arraignment  less  of  his  faulty  self  than  of 
what  he  believed  the  faulty  standards  of  ethics.  This 
change  presents  the  familiar  sequence  of  emotions: 
self-disgust,  doubt,  despair,  a  total  dbattement  of  mental 
and  moral  activities,  and,  finally,  emergence  on  the  side 
of  simple  faith,  and  a  simple  plan  of  existence.  But  there 
is  an  individual  quality  in  Tolstoi's  My  Confession 
which  has  a  special  interest  and  point  for  us.  Examined 
more  nearly,  it  is  really  the  record  of  the  immense  pres- 
sure of  the  Russian  social  order  upon  one  over-sensitive 
soul.  The  monstrous  distortions,  the  continuous  spec- 
tacle of  injustice  in  the  life  about  him,  could  not  be 
borne  by  this  particular  individual  without  producing 
morbid  conditions  of  spiritual  responsibility.    We  read 


RELIGION  263 

every  day  of  similar  effects  upon  equally  sensitive 
persons,  although  their  manifestations  in  action  vary 
widely.  Tolstoi  was  naturally  belie\ing,  but  the  in- 
justice about  him  killed  his  faith;  for  the  same  reason 
his  scepticism  could  have  nothing  but  a  destructive 
effect.  His  religious  crisis  and  his  political  crisis  became 
one;  his  religious  ideas  form  a  necessary  part  of  his 
socialistic  ideas.  This  is  distinctive  in  his  case;  it  is  not 
found  in  similar  examples  during  the  richly  flowering 
time  of  the  religious  self-study. 

Suggestive  and  interesting  accounts  of  religious  de- 
velopment are  given  in  such  dissimilar  personalities  as 
Dr.  Edmund  Calamy  and  Giuseppe  Giusti,  the  Italian 
poet;  by  the  tragedian  WilHam  Macready,  Mark  Patti- 
son,  Edgar  Quinet,  Sir  Capel-Lofft.  Data  showing  strong 
predispositions  and  definite  psychological  religious  con- 
ditions are  furnished  by  Agrippa  d'Aubigne,  by  P. 
D.  Huet,  by  Greorg  Brandes,  James  Freeman  Clarke, 
Samuel  Roberts,  J.  A.  Symonds,  and  others.  Rare, 
indeed,  is  a  volume  so  unforgettably  charming  and  so 
authoritative  as  the  Souvenirs  d'Enfance  et  de  Jeun- 
esse,  in  which  Ernest  Renan  describes  his  peculiar 
temperament  and  situation.  The  whole  man  —  his 
dreaminess,  his  indecision,  his  indulgent  tolerance,  his 
scientific  virtues,  his  "defauts  de  pretre,'^  are  conveyed 
in  a  rapid  and  convincing  analysis.  The  perfect  opti- 
mism of  freedom  is  there;  and  yet  the  tenderness  for 
outgrown  creeds,  which  is  that  of  the  parent  for  the 


264  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

imaginations  of  a  child.  Here  is  no  harshness,  no  scorn 
for  the  dreams,  the  beautiful,  impossible  visions  of  the 
age  of  faith.  He  has  had  ''le  bonheur  de  connaitre 
la  vertue  absolue  .  .  .  Au  fond  je  sais  que  ma  vie  est 
toujours  gouvernee  par  une  foi  que  je  n'ai  plus." 

A  like  note  of  encouragement  is  sounded  in  the  His- 
toire  de  mes  Idees,  of  Edgar  Quinet.  He  also,  in  strik- 
ing antithetical  phrases,  finds  his  change  of  view  con- 
structive rather  than  destructive,  and  the  joys  of  life 
increased  rather  than  lessened.  ^Xhaque  jour,"  he 
beautifully  writes,  ''la  justice  m'a  paru  plus  sainte,  la 
liberte  plus  belle,  la  parole  plus  sacree,  I'art  plus  reel, 
la  realite  plus  artiste,  la  poesie  plus  vrai,  la  verite  plus 
poetique,  la  nature  plus  divine,  le  divin  plus  naturel." 

This  is  the  type  of  religious  confession  which  is  so 
helpful  to  the  young  and  unsure;  to  that  hesitating, 
seeking  mind  not  yet  determined  upon  a  cause.  Be  it 
Augustin  or  Teresa,  Renan,  Quinet,  or  Ali  Hazin,  these 
are  the  voices  which  call  to  ardent  spirits  standing  at 
the  crucial  moment  of  life. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  a  comparative 
study  of  the  religious  confession  may  lead  the  mind  in 
certain  directions,  and  that  if  it  has  led,  thus  far,  in  no 
really  significant  direction,  it  is  because  the  work  upon 
it  has  been  so  completely  a  priori.  Up  to  the  present, 
the  psychologist  or  neurologist  has  formulated  his 
theory,  and  then  turned  confidingly  to  some  one  else's 
list  of  cases  to  select  those  bearing  upon  his  theory.   In 


RELIGION  265 

Les  Maladies  du  Sentiment  Religieux,  Murisier  ob- 
serves that  religious  psychology  to-day  has  failed  to 
make  use  of  autobiography  and  other  material,  but  has 
abandoned  itself  to  predication  and  abstract  disserta- 
tion, thereby  involving  a  real  loss  to  science;  and  this 
still  remains  the  fact.  An  authoritative  and  complete 
work  on  the  religious  autobiography,  making  use  of  ex- 
isting material  by  the  inductive  method,  has  yet  to  be 
written.  It  should  be  one  of  the  world's  great  books; 
one  of  those  volumes  which  speak  in  a  thousand  tongues 
of  suggestion  to  the  seeking  intellect.  Of  the  value  of 
such  a  work  there  exists  no  corroding  doubt;  indeed, 
considering  the  part  played  by  these  records  in  our 
mental  history,  our  neglect  of  them  is  amazing  indeed. 
Goethe,  in  describing  the  conception  of  Werther,  says : 
"The  whole  shot  together  from  all  sides,  and  became  a 
solid  mass,  just  as  water  in  a  vessel  which  stands  upon 
the  point  of  freezing,  is  converted  into  hard  ice  by  the 
most  gentle  shake."  On  all  sides  we  find  this  image  re- 
peated in  the  mental  life  of  the  thoughtful  and  intelli- 
gent. Tentative  ideas,  held  in  solution,  become  crystal- 
lized at  the  touch  of  personal  influences  and  intellectual 
understanding;  and,  if  asked  what  most  frequently  and 
potently  furnishes  this  touch  of  guidance,  one  would 
reply  without  hesitation:  The  religious  confession. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE  NERVOUS  SYSTEMS  OF  THE  PAST 

If  it  seems,  in  glancing  through  the  more  ancient 
records  of  personal  experience,  that  we  have  come  to 
understand  much  which  was  strange  in  the  writer's 
everyday  life,  what  shall  we  say  regarding  the  dark 
incidents  which  touch  the  supernatural?  How  many 
terrifying  and  inexplicable  past  occurrences  turn  toward 
us  now  an  aspect  of  famiharity?  M.  Funck-Brentano's 
excellent  little  study  on  the  death  of  Madame  Hen- 
riette  d' Angle terre  is  one  of  the  most  forcible  illustra- 
tions to  be  found  of  the  bright  search-light  which  modern 
knowledge  throws  back  over  the  centuries.  It  is  not 
only  for  the  specialist  that  the  path  has  been  cleared. 
Bossuet,  in  the  thundering  terrors  of  his  funeral  sermon, 
shook  the  hearts  of  his  auditors  with  the  horror  of 
sudden  death:  ''Madame  se  meurt  —  Madame  est 
morte! "  he  cried,  and  his  description  of  that  swift  end- 
ing left  no  accountable  cause  but  deadly  poison.  Who 
among  us  nowadays  on  hearing  that  a  lady  of  depleted 
constitution,  ansemic  habit,  and  unhygienic  life,  with  a 
digestion  so  impaired  that  for  weeks  past  she  had  been 
living  chiefly  on  ass's  milk,  had  first  danced  upon  the 
grass,  next  bathed  in  a  stream,  and  then,  returning, 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF   THE   PAST  267 

partaken  hastily  of  an  iced  drink,  —  who  among  us  but 
would  think  that  these  proceedings  quite  accounted 
for  a  swift,  painful,  and  mortal  illness?  The  whole 
troop  of  ailments  for  which  we  are  railroaded  to  the 
hospitals,  to  be  operated  upon  and  returned,  dead  or 
convalescent,  to  our  friends,  were  invariably  ascribed, 
because  of  their  rapidity  of  action,  to  poisonous  agen- 
cies. Science  stands  ready  to  determine  the  cause  of  any 
of  these  cases,  where  there  chances  to  have  been  left  a 
record  giving  sufficient  data.  In  the  same  way,  much 
more  is  to-day  understood  of  those  hysterical  epidemics 
which  attacked  mediaeval  religious  communities,  and  of 
the  marvels  they  produced,  wherever  the  contemporary 
historians  have  preserved  facts  and  material  of  uncon- 
scious suggestiveness. 

Just  as  it  has  been  shown  in  the  preceding  chapter 
that  the  religious  and  mystical  vision  described  in  the 
pious  autobiography  is  usually  accompanied  by  many 
explanatory  facts  and  unconsciously  illuminative  cir- 
cumstances, so  we  find  the  supernatural  vision,  the 
ghost-story,  likewise  accompanied.  Most  frequent  here 
are  the  cases  of  '^misinterpreted  observation,"  as  shown 
in  CelUni  and  Blair.  In  the  light  of  such  anecdotes  and 
experiences  the  nervous  systems  of  the  past  become 
linked  more  closely  with  our  own.  One  is  accustomed 
to  think  of  men  and  women  in  1600  as  infinitely  less 
sensitive,  as  more  robust,  more  stolid;  and  so  in  a  sense 
they  were.   Cruder  contacts,  more  dangers,  more  vicissi- 


268  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tudes, —  these  tended  to  toughen  the  epidermis  for  self- 
preservation.  To-day  a  child's  illness,  an  over-gay  sea- 
son, the  loss  of  an  investment,  a  family  jar,  —  these  are 
accepted  as  sufficient  cause  for  overstrained  nerves,  and 
temporary  retirement  to  a  sanitarium.  Then  war,  rap- 
ine, fire,  sword,  prolonged  and  mortal  peril,  were  con- 
sidered as  furnishing  no  excuse  to  men  or  women  for 
altering  the  habits,  or  slackening  the  energies  of  their 
daily  existence.  On  the  night  of  St.  Bartholomew,  a 
hunted  Huguenot  rushed  into  the  bedroom  of  Marguerite 
de  Valois.  Her  husband's  danger  was  unquestioned,  her 
own  exceedingly  great.  In  his  mortal  agony  the  man 
had  clutched  at  her  clothes;  four  archers  pursued  him 
into  the  very  ruelle  where  her  bed  stood.  She  says  she 
was  more  frightened  than  the  poor  creature  himself,  and 
that  when  M.  de  Nangay,  Captain  of  the  Guard,  ap- 
peared he  could  not  keep  from  laughing,  — "ne  se  peust 
tenir  de  rire'M  The  incident  hardly  strikes  us  as  par- 
ticularly amusing.  Yet,  although  Marguerite  declares 
she  hastened  to  her  sister's  room  *'more  dead  than 
alive,"  she  does  not  omit  to  tell  us,  very  coolly,  how  she 
went  out,  ''changeant  de  chemise,  parcequ'il  m'avoit 
toute  couverte  de  sang";  and  it  does  not  appear  that 
she  felt  that  the  adventure  furnished  any  excuse  to  shirk 
her  business  on  the  following  morning. 

Few  modern  mothers,  who  consider  one  or  two  healthy 
children  and  the  conduct  of  a  simple  household  suffi- 
cient warrant  to  talk  of  overstrain,  but  would  marvel  at 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF   THE   PAST  269 

the  stoicism  of  Lady  Fanshawe,  who  writes  of  her  four- 
teen children,  of  wandering,  penury,  privation,  the 
birth  and  death  of  baby  after  baby,  the  ague,  the 
smallpox,  with  an  apparent  philosophic  fatalism.  But 
Lady  Fanshawe  is  not  always  so  stolid,  and  when  she 
sees  a  ghost  she  says:  "I  was  so  much  frightened  that 
my  hair  stood  on  end  and  my  night-clothes  fell  off." 

The  candor  of  Robert  Blair,  which  has  just  been 
noticed  in  reference  to  his  religious  ecstasy,  is  of  equal 
service  to  the  reader  when  it  concerns  other  adventures. 
At  college,  Blair  tells  of  his  regimen:  "I  chose  to 
forbear  every  other  day  one  meal  of  meat  .  .  .  and 
resolved  to  watch  at  my  studies  every  other  night." 
Our  modern  ideas  would  consider  this  a  very  favorable 
arrangement  for  ghost-seeing,  nor  are  we  surprised  to 
read:  ''I  have  seen  a  spirit  in  the  likeness  of  one  of  my 
condisciples  .  .  .  whom  I  chased  to  a  corner  of  the 
chamber  where  he  seemed  to  hide  himself;  but  when  I 
offered  to  pull  him  out  I  could  find  nothing."  Blair's 
strong  character  placed  him  above  weaker  fears;  he 
triumphed  over  ''these  apparitions  in  the  night-season, 
so  that  I  slept  very  sweetly."  Later  in  life  he  hears 
a  voice  prophesying  his  wife's  death,  as  he  hastened 
homeward.  Blair's  experiences  are  all  tinctured  with 
the  austerity  and  beauty  of  his  character,  which  was 
genuinely  pure  and  uplifted.  The  early  date  of  his 
record  almost  warrants  a  certain  coarseness,  which  yet 
is  absent  from  his  nature.   It  is  with  full  conviction  that 


270  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

we  read  of  his  action  when  he  stumbled  upon  a  volume 
of  Petronius.  So  astonished  and  disgusted  was  he,  that 
he  impetuously  stuffed  it  into  his  chamber-fire  with  the 
tongs. 

Fear  —  sheer,  blind,  unreasonable  terror  —  is  not  by 
any  means  the  torment  of  the  imaginative  and  unbal- 
anced only.  These  records  show  it  to  be  present  as  a 
force  in  the  lives  of  the  most  literal  and  level-headed 
persons.  Those  two  hard-headed  Scots  lawyers,  Sir 
John  Campbell  and  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  both  avow  a 
dread  of  the  dark.  The  first  says:  "When  left  alone  at 
the  midnight  hour  I  cannot  help  a  feeling  of  eeriness 
or  superstitious  dread  coming  over  me  .  .  .  and  if  the 
wainscot  cracks,  the  hair  of  my  head  writhes  up!" 
while  the  second  says  that  tales  of  witches  and  devils 
*'are  sometimes  very  unwelcome  intruders  upon  my 
thoughts  " ;  and  a  greater  Scot  —  Burns  —  avows  the 
same  fears. 

Terror  of  the  unknown  played  a  large  part  in  the 
early  lives  of  those  two  intellectual  women,  Harriet 
Martineau  and  Sonia  Kovalevsky;  the  former  declares 
that  she  was  afraid  of  everything.  The  first  memory 
Herbert  Spencer  had  was  his  fear  of  solitude.  Bussy- 
Rabutin  was  mostly  afraid  of  being  afraid.  Nearer  to 
our  own  day  comes  the  experience  of  Lord  Brougham, 
who,  being  in  a  warm  bath,  and  very  tired,  sees  the 
vision  of  a  comrade.  The  coincidence  was  startling, 
since  the  man  died  that  day;  but  Lord  Brougham  does 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF  THE   PAST  271 

not  hesitate  to  say  that  he  believes  himself  to  have 
fallen  asleep  for  an  instant  unawares;  he  also  adds  that, 
in  his  opinion,  "every  seeming  miracle  is  capable  of 
explanation."  On  the  other  hand,  Alexander  Carlyle 
was  cured  of  his  superstitious  terrors  by  the  death  of  an 
intimate  friend  who  had  sworn  to  reappear  to  him.  His 
failure  to  keep  the  promise  rid  Carlyle  of  such  terrors 
forever. 

The  four  volumes  of  A.  J.  C.  Hare's  Story  of  My 
Life,  stripped  of  description  and  outside  anecdote,  pre- 
sent an  hereditary  and  family  situation  of  religious 
overstrain  which  one  must  return  to  Guibert  de  Nogent 
to  parallel.  The  influences  surrounding  the  writer  on 
all  sides  make  for  extraordinary  superstition,  and  the 
visions,  the  supernatural  experiences  of  the  various 
main  characters,  deserve  a  catalogue  in  themselves.  It 
is  a  particularly  suggestive  example  of  the  contagion  of 
religious  and  supernatural  terrors,  operating  on  a  mod- 
ern family  instead  of  a  mediaeval  monastic  community. 

Among  the  ghosts  of  earlier  date  is  one  of  his  dead 
mother  seen  by  Agrippa  d'Aubigne  at  six  and  a  half 
years  old.  Again  we  are  not  surprised,  for  we  are  told 
that  at  this  age  he  could  read  Latin,  Greek,  French,  and 
Hebrew,  while  a  year  later  he  translated  the  Crito, 
which  was  published  with  a  frontispiece  of  his  ^'effigie 
enfantine.'^  The  recurrent  childish  phantoms  seen  by 
Jerome  Cardan,  —  the  red  cock,  the  transparent  figures 
rising  from  the  carpet,  —  are  due  to  a  plain  case  of 


272  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

early  nervous  strain.  A  very  different  person,  the 
Englishman  Samuel  Roberts,  had  pretty  nearly  the 
same  dreams  and  visions.  The  modern  cases  of  night- 
terrors  in  Leigh  Hunt,  Anne  Gilbert,  Frederick  Locker- 
Lampson,  J.  Addington  Symonds,  and  Edmund  Gosse, 
are  similar,  both  as  to  effect  and  cause.  In  Heine's 
childish  dreams  he  always  figured  as  his  own  great- 
uncle,  whom  he  much  admired;  these  dreams  seemed  as 
vivid  as  visions. 

The  salamander  seen  by  Benvenuto  Cellini  was,  he 
declares,  impressed  upon  his  mind  by  his  father's  beat- 
ing; his  age  at  the  time,  three  years,  renders  this  testi- 
mony dubious.  But  Cellini  had  no  doubt  whatever 
concerning  the  devils  he  saw  in  the  Coliseum.  No  more 
had  the  astrologer  William  Lilly  about  his  conversation 
with  Queen  Mab;  he  describes  her  appearance  and 
manner  minutely. 

In  his  Confession,  Patrick  describes  how  once  "Satan 
fell  on  me  like  a  huge  rock,  and  I  had  no  power  in 
my  limbs  ...  it  came  to  my  mind  that  I  should  call 
out  '  Helias ! '  and  in  that  moment  I  saw  the  sun  rise 
in  the  heaven,  and  while  I  was  crying  out  ' Helias!  * 
with  all  my  might,  behold,  the  splendor  of  that  sun 
fell  upon  me,  and  at  once  removed  the  weight  from 
me."  This  is  a  remarkably  interesting  and  picturesque 
experience,  inasmuch  as  the  only  facts  contained  in  it 
are  those  of  a  weight  on  Patrick's  limbs  which  was 
dissipated  by  a  sight  of  the  rising  sun.   The  mystical  and 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF   THE   PAST  273 

religious  connotation  lies  all  in  his  mind;  and  the  word 
he  used  as  an  invocation  was  entirely  applicable,  not 
like  the  stuff  with  which  Jerome  Cardan's  tutelary 
genius  used  to  perplex  him  in  dreams.  "Te  sin  casa/' 
the  first  phrase  said  to  Cardan,  was  neither  good 
Latin  nor  good  Italian,  and  the  second  phrase,  '^Steph- 
anus  Dames,"  was  sheer  gibberish.  But  the  use  of 
verbal  invocation  by  Patrick  is  very  significant,  show- 
ing that,  though  a  Christian,  he  had  not  traveled  far 
from  the  barbarous  magic  of  the  native  British  creeds. 
The  Mogul  Emperor,  Timur  the  Great,  is  assured  of 
his  future  success  by  visions  and  voices.  Praying  in  his 
tent,  he  is  told  by  an  unseen  voice:  ''Timur,  victory 
and  conquest  are  thine."  ''Convinced  it  was  an  angel," 
he  comments,  "I  felt  strong  of  heart."  This  incident 
was  not  classified  with  those  mystical  phenomena  in 
the  last  chapter  which  are  unconnected  with  religion, 
because,  superficially  at  least,  it  appears  to  have  a  re- 
ligious cause.  Examined  in  the  light  of  Timur's  whole 
book,  it  -^-ill  be  readily  granted  as  not  properly  a  re- 
ligious experience  at  all.  Timur's  religious  feeling  is 
cold  and  conventional;  he  is  no  more  of  a  fanatic  than 
Napoleon.  Like  Napoleon,  however,  he  has  a  high 
fatalism,  a  fanatic  belief  in  his  star.  His  autobiography 
is  an  intellectual  document,  permeated  with  a  sense  of 
the  divine  right  of  kings,  which  increases  his  self-im- 
portance and  gives  him  solemnity.  Timur  is  careful  to 
state  his  faults,  or  what  appear  to  him  as  such;  he  tells 


«74  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  vanity  and  pride,  and  of  good  moral  resolutions  to 
overcome  them.  In  a  serious  mood  he  writes :  "  I  left  off 
playing  chess;  adhered  to  the  law,  and  followed  the 
dictates  of  religion;  resolved  not  to  injure  any  creature," 
and  is  deeply  regretful  that  he  had  stepped  on  an  ant. 
Strange  sensitiveness  in  one  of  the  bloodiest  of  con- 
querors !  That  susceptibility  to  warnings  from  the  other 
world  often  goes  hand-in-hand  with  practical  abihty, 
with  warlike  courage  and  daring,  is  shown  in  other 
cases  than  Timur.  Flavins  Josephus  notes  three  sepa- 
rate divine  w^arnings  received  by  him  in  dreams.  Blaise 
de  Monluc,  that  ruthless  fighter,  wept  copiously  at  the 
evil  presage  of  a  dream;  although  this  may  be  but  an 
instance  of  what  Dr.  Calamy  calls  Monluc's  "rhodo- 
montading  around !'* 

Strong-minded  persons,  men  and  women  of  intellect, 
share  the  prevalent  superstitions:  credulity,  as  has 
been  noted  in  the  case  of  Jerome  Cardan,  is  more  a 
question  of  temperament  than  of  intellect.  The  pros 
and  cons  of  the  great  mathematician's  supernatural 
beliefs  have  already  been  discussed.  Even  Herbert  of 
Cherbury,  that  clear  intelligence,  asked  for  a  sign  from 
Heaven  as  to  publishing  his  book:  "One  fair  day  in 
summer,  my  casement  being  opened  toward  the  south, 
the  sun  shining  clear  and  no  wind  stirring  ...  a  loud, 
yet  gentle  noise  came  from  the  heavens  (for  it  was  like 
nothing  on  earth)  and  did  .  .  .  comfort  and  cheer  me.'* 
He  protests  that  he  is  not  superstitious,  and  proceeds 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF   THE   PAST  275 

—  very  like  Cardan  again  —  to  give  his  circumstantial 
reasons  for  believing  the  occurrence  to  be  supernatural. 
"A  loud  yet  gentle  voice,"  is  Herbert's  description 
of  angehc  warning.  To  Cardan  his  demon  spoke  always 
in  a  murmur,  which  ''in  disputation  or  argument  be- 
came a  roar  of  voices."  Low,  insinuating  whispers  of 
doubt  affect  Teresa  and  Madame  Guyon.  An  authorita- 
tive, commanding  voice  from  heaven  leads  Augustin, 
Henry  Alline,  and  Fox  to  a  change  of  thought.  Eliza- 
beth Ashbridge,  an  English  Quaker,  writes:  ''I  thought 
myself  sitting  by  a  fire  in  company  with  several  others, 
when  there  arose  a  thunder-gust;  and  a  noise,  loud  as 
from  a  mighty  trumpet,  pierced  my  ears  with  these 
words,  'Oh  eternity!  eternity!  the  endless  term  of  long 
eternity!'"  With  John  Crook  the  voice  cries:  '"Fear 
not,  oh  thou  tossed!'  Whereupon  all  was  hushed  and 
quieted  within  me." 

So  much  for  auditory  phenomena;  the  visual  also 
have  much  in  common.  Alline  writes  :  "I  was  alone 
and  pondering  on  my  lost  condition  when  all  on  a  sud- 
den I  was  surrounded  by  an  uncommon  light,  like  a 
blaze  of  fire,"  and,  later,  "I  thought  I  saw  a  small  body 
of  light  as  plain  as  possible  before  me."  Alline  lived  only 
till  his  thirty -sixth  year,  and  his  newly  acquired  mental 
peace  is  followed,  almost  at  once,  by  the  physical  symp- 
toms which  finally  killed  him.  Suso's  visions,  in  the 
beginning,  are  that  kind  of  gracious  and  lively  imagin- 
ings of  heaven  and  angels  which  are  common  to  many 


276  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

young  souls;  they  progress  steadily  toward  definite 
hallucination. 

Toward  the  end  of  Haydon's  life  we  find  the  gradual 
approach  of  mental  disease  noted  in  his  autobiography 
with  rare  fidelity  and  accuracy.  In  the  beginning  were 
night-horrors,  recurrent  nightmares,  fits  of  frantic 
energy  alternating  with  listless  collapse.  Later  on,  his 
eyes  and  digestion  are  affected;  and  his  moods  pre- 
occupy him  to  a  morbid  extent.  Then  comes  a  time 
when  he  begins  to  hear  "a  sort  of  audible  whisper," 
and  to  see  ''a  creeping  light," — one  shuts  the  book 
with  a  shudder,  premonitory  of  darkness  and  the  razor. 
But  in  the  light  of  such  efforts  as  the  recent  attempt  of 
Mr.  Clifford  W.  Beers  to  describe,  analyze,  and  estimate 
his  own  condition  during  an  acute  attack  of  melan- 
cholia and  suicidal  mania.  Hay  don's  case  deserves  a 
closer  attention  than  it  has  heretofore  received. 

The  memoirs  of  the  mentally  or  nervously  unbal- 
anced lead  us,  by  natural  steps,  to  the  broader  question 
of  human  unhappiness  and  its  cause.  We  are  not  stinted 
as  to  documentary  evidence,  as  is  pointed  out  by  Mr. 
Ribot:  "Quand  on  traite  de  la  douleur  on  est  embar- 
rasse  par  Tabondance  des  documents  et  la  difficulte 
d'etre  court;  pour  le  plaisir  c'est  le  contraire. "  Already 
the  reader  has  had  occasion  to  agree  with  this  general- 
ization, and  to  be  grateful  for  M.  Ribot's  clearness  of 
definition  and  distinction.  *'La  chagrin,"  he  so  aptly 
says,  "est  li6e  a  des  purs  concepts  ou  a  des  representa- 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF  THE   PAST  277 

tions  ideales.  C'est  la  douleur  intellectuelle,  bien  plus 
rare,  et  qui  d'ordinaire  n'afflige  pas,  du  moins  long- 
temps,  le  commun  des  hommes.  Telle  est  la  douleur 
de  rhomme  religieux  qui  ne  se  sent  pas  assez  fervent, 
du  metaphysicien  tourmente  par  le  doute,  le  poete  et 
Tartiste,  qui  poursuit  sans  succes  la  solution  d'un 
probleme."  Names  occur  to  the  mind  at  once  as  exam- 
ples of  these  intellectual  sorrows.  Every  religious  con- 
fession gives  token  of  the  first;  John  Stuart  Mill,  Al 
Ghazzali,  Maimon,  devote  pages  to  analyzing  the  second; 
and  among  the  poets  and  artists  we  may  name  Alfieri, 
Leigh  Hunt,  Cellini,  Haj^don.  Religion,  particularly 
on  the  side  of  fear,  has  been  the  great  influence  for 
sorrow  in  the  life  of  intelligent  man.  Both  because 
of  persecution,  and  the  practical  difficulties  which 
it  threw  across  the  pathways  of  humanity's  mental 
progress;  and  because  of  its  inward  darkening  effect 
upon  the  spirits  through  fear,  it  is  present  as  the  most 
frequent  cause  for  the  unhappiness  of  the  thinking 
creature. 

The  Exemplar  vitce  humance  of  Uriel  d'Acosta 
has  already  been  mentioned  among  the  religious  con- 
fessions dealing  mth  changes  of  faith;  it  contains 
certain  sentences  which  deserve  quotation  in  this  con- 
nection. "By  religion,"  declares  Acosta,  with  bitter- 
ness, ''has  my  life  been  made  a  scene  of  incredible 
sufferings.  I  was  educated,  according  to  the  custom  of 
that  country,  in  the  Popish  religion;  and  when  I  was 


278  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

but  a  young  man,  the  dread  of  eternal  damnation 
made  me  desire  to  keep  all  its  doctrines  with  the  utmost 
exactness.  I  employed  my  leisure  time  in  reading  the 
Gospel  .  .  .  but  difficulties  rose  before  me;  which 
by  degrees  threw  me  into  such  inextricable  perplexities 
and  doubts  as  overwhelmed  me  with  grief  and  melan- 
choly. ...  I  began  when  I  was  about  twenty  years 
old  to  question  with  myself  whether  or  no  it  was  not 
possible  for  these  things  which  were  related  of  another 
life  to  be  forgeries,  forasmuch  as  my  reason  did  per- 
petually suggest  to  me  things  that  were  directly  con- 
trary." 

Rarely  in  literature  has  the  gist  of  religious  unhappi- 
ness  been  presented  in  a  paragraph  more  condensed 
and  poignant  than  this.  If  the  remainder  of  Acosta's 
tract  is  but  a  denunciation,  this  beginning  is  exemplar 
vitce  humance,  indeed.  Unfortunately,  Acosta  seems  to 
have  lacked  the  iron  fibre  of  the  martyr  for  his  suc- 
cessive opinions.  First  Catholic,  then  Jew,  then  apos- 
tate and  again  Jew,  he  suffered  all  the  humiliations 
which  the  bigotry  of  men  could  inflict,  and  all  the  bitter- 
ness of  persecution,  both  temporal  and  spiritual.  No 
wretchedness  was  spared  him;  not  even  a  sense  of  fail- 
ure, nor  attempt  at  murderous  revenge,  nor  suicide  at 
the  end. 

The  other  strongly  differentiated  intellectual  miseries, 
as  observed  by  M.  Ribot,  may  be  found  to  a  greater 
or  less  degree  in  many  autobiographers.   Such  is  the 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF  THE   PAST  279 

person  with  a  grievance,  a  strongly  marked  type, 
presenting  features  which  deserve  a  closer  study  than 
psychologists  have,  up  to  the  present,  accorded  him. 

The  famous  tragedienne,  Mademoiselle  Sophie  Clairon, 
is  one  of  them,  and  Marie  Mancini,  Princess  Colonna, 
another.  Cabals  at  the  Comedie-Frangaise  permanently 
soured  the  life  of  the  former;  her  failure  to  marry 
Louis  XIV,  that  of  the  latter.  Even  before  poor 
Haydon's  mental  disease  began  to  show  itself,  he  is 
embittered  by  the  public's  lack  of  recognition.  The 
spirited  memoire  of  Hector  Berlioz,  the  musical  com- 
poser, traces  the  progress  of  a  grievance  throughout  a 
life,  rolling  up  matter  like  the  proverbial  snowball,  till 
it  is  best  expressed  in  his  final  sentence :  "Je  suis  dans 
ma  61®  annee;  je  n'ai  plus  ni  espoirs,  ni  illusions,  ni  de 
vastes  pensees;  mon  fils  est  presque  toujours  loin  de 
moi;  je  suis  seul;  mon  mepris  pour  Timbecillite  et  I'im- 
probite  des  hommes,  ma  haine  pour  leur  atroce  ferocite, 
sont  a  leur  comble.'^ 

This  denunciation  reminds  one  of  the  unhappy  poet, 
Sir  Egerton  Brydges,  whose  failure  to  impress  his  pecu- 
liar, exclusive  and  aristocratic  views  upon  a  broadening 
and  progressive  society,  turned  his  hypersensitiveness 
to  gall.  ''No  one  has  met  with  more  dampers  through 
life  than  I  have.  From  my  very  childhood  every  sort 
of  chill  was  thrown  in  my  way";  and  he  goes  on  to 
say:  "My  fears,  my  presages,  my  indignations,  my 
regrets,  hang  like  barbed  arrows  in  my  brain!"    His 


280  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

belief  is  that  "a  poetical  temperament  is  of  all  others 
the  least  fitted  to  the  world." 

The  Marechal  de  Bassompierre  ends  his  gay  insou- 
ciant account  upon  much  the  same  note  of  querulous 
complaint.  But  perhaps  the  very  wretchedest,  and 
surely  one  of  the  most  instructive  cases,  is  the  unfortu- 
nate Joseph  Blanco  White.  Morbid  sensitiveness  and 
religious  uncertainty  led  to  bad  health  a  constitution 
never  robust;  and  plunged  him  into  a  pit  of  utter  misery. 
White's  situation  is  almost  exactly  the  same  as  that 
out  of  which  Ernest  Renan  raises  himself  to  tolerance, 
indulgence,  and  serenity.  No  sermon  ever  preached  on 
moral  health  could  do  more  good  than  a  close  compara- 
tive study  of  these  two  documents.  Like  Renan, 
Blanco  White  was  bred  to  Catholicism,  which  he  later 
renounces;  like  Renan,  he  retains  the  priestly  tempera- 
ment, the  clerical  attitude.  It  is  true  the  Frenchman 
speaks  of  his  own  indecision,  yet  one  feels  his  vitality, 
his  initiative  force  —  a  force  which  enables  him  to  face, 
to  lift,  and  to  dispose  of  a  weight  of  doubt  which  bent 
the  weaker  man  to  the  earth. 

Two  varieties  of  the  unhappy  autobiography  thus  ex- 
ist for  us — the  weak  and  the  strong.  No  more  unhappy 
life  was  ever  written  than  that  of  Mrs.  Oliphant;  it  ceases 
upon  a  note  of  passionate  grief  which  wrings  the  heart; 
yet  never  was  an  account  more  inspiring  or  invigorating. 
^'This  fat,  little,  commonplace  woman,  rather  tongue- 
tied,''  says:  **I  have  been  tempted  to  begin  writing  by 


THE   NERVOUS  SYSTEMS   OF  THE   PAST  281 

George  Eliot's  life,  with  that  curious  sort  of  self -com- 
passion which  one  cannot  get  clear  of.  I  wonder  if  I 
am  a  little  envious  of  her.  ...  I  am  in  very  little  dan- 
ger of  ha\dng  my  life  written!"  The  record,  as  we  read 
it,  makes  us  feel  that  here  at  least  is  a  note  George 
Eliot  never  knew,  for  the  larger  part  of  her  life  was 
sheltered  from  such  poignancies.  It  is  the  average, 
everyday  woman's  experiences  this  woman  writes  of, 
and  so  courageously!  All  the  strong  and  delicate  can- 
dor of  it;  her  struggle  with  common  cares  and  bur- 
dens; the  life,  never  free  from  drudgery;  the  marriage, 
not  altogether  happy;  the  sons,  not  altogether  satisfac- 
tory —  all  the  pulvis  et  umbra.  Who  can  forget  what 
she  says  of  her  early  married  life?  ''Had  I  gone  alone 
with  my  husband  —  some  unhappiness  might  have  been 
spared;"  and  adds,  characteristically:  ''Who  can  tell? 
There  would  have  been  other  unhappiness  to  take 
its  place."  Then,  after  a  long  illness,  her  husband  dies 
in  Italy  —  "quite  conscious,"  she  writes,  wondering 
at,  and  almost  resenting,  the  indifference  of  the  dying; 
"kissing  me  when  his  lips  were  already  cold;  and  quite, 
quite  free  from  anxiety;  though  he  left  me  with  two 
helpless  children,  and  one  unborn,  and  no  friends  but 

the s.'^ 

She  is  able  to  the  end  of  her  life  to  support  her  own 
family  and  that  of  a  brother  by  her  pen;  and  it  is  in  her 
attitude  toward  this  fact  and  its  influence  that  she  is 
especially  suggestive.    Work  was  easier  to   her  than 


282  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

economy;  and  she  is  willing,  like  Cardan,  to  shoulder 
the  responsibility  of  this  attitude  for  the  weakening 
effect  upon  the  character  of  her  sons.  But,  alas!  save 
to  her  mother-pride,  it  all  mattered  so  little!  for  in  the 
last  pages  she  speaks,  like  Calantha,  only 

"Of  death!  and  death!  and  death!  Yet  I  danced  forward, 
Though  it  struck  home,  and  here,  and  on  the  instant." 

Then  she  sounds  the  note  of  intensity  which  she  never 
struck  in  her  novels,  and  which  gives  her  autobiography 
a  place  where  she  need  not  be  afraid  of  George  Eliot, 
nor  of  anyone  else.  Brave  misery,  gallant  sorrow,  they 
are  perhaps  the  most  salutary  reading  in  the  world. 
Mrs.  Oliphant,  the  Italian  poet  Giuseppe  Giusti,  Madame 
de  Staal-Delaunay,  Harriet  Martineau,  Jerome  Cardan, 
—  are  not  their  narratives  worth  a  hundred  triumphant 
surveys  of  power  and  prosperity? 

At  what  point  the  load  of  human  misery  becomes 
too  heavy  for  human  shoulders,  has  been  greatly  specu- 
lated upon  from  early  times  until  the  present.  Records 
of  the  coroner's  office  furnish  material  for  exhaustive 
surveys  like  Enrico  Morselli's,^  which  treat  of  sex  and 
nationality,  and  of  the  social  and  psychological  in- 
fluences at  work.  Personal  narratives  can  enlighten  the 
subject  but  little,  since  the  wish  expressed  in  them  to 
end  the  whole  business  of  living  is  necessarily  unful- 
filled.   They  do,  however,  furnish  suggestions  as  to  the 

1  "Suicide." 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF   THE   PAST     283 

sorts  of  unhappiness  which  serve  to  produce  the  smcidal 
impulse,  and  to  its  extent  and  its  physical  and  nervous 
reactions  when  produced. 

Jerome  Cardan,  writing  of  his  own  boyhood,  makes 
the  remark:  ''There  were  times  when  I  did  not  lack 
heroic  passion,  so  that  I  have  contemplated  suicide; 
but  as  I  suspect  this  same  thought  to  have  occurred 
to  others,  I  shall  not  dwell  on  it  further  in  this  book." 
It  v»'ill  scarcely  be  beheved  that  this  shrewd  and  ac- 
curate observation  was  singled  out  by  contemporaries 
as  a  triumphant  proof  of  the  author's  lunacy!  Even 
so  late  as  1854,  Mr.  Morley,  Cardan's  biographer,  is 
quite  horrified  by  it,  and  hastens  to  assure  us  that  he 
believes  the  idea  of  self-destruction  improbable,  if  not 
impossible,  to  youth.  To  healthy  youth  he  might  have 
said;  but  Cardan  presses  the  abnormal  conditions  of 
his  boyhood  upon  one's  attention,  and  makes  the  re- 
mark mth  his  usual  due  appreciation  of  all  the  facts. 
Modern  scientific  observers  bear  him  out  in  this,  as  in 
so  many  other  points  of  personal  psycholog}\  Dr.  G. 
Stanley  Hall,^  studying  the  problem  of  youthful  suicide, 
quite  does  away  with  Mr.  Morley 's  ingenuous  conven- 
tions about  the  joyousness  of  youth.  The  epoch  of 
disillusion,  Dr.  Hall  shows,  combines  with  the  age  of 
emotion  to  produce  acute  conditions  of  wretchedness, 
from  which  self-destruction  seems  the  only  issue.  Truly, 
as  William  Bell  Scott  puts  it:  ''Childhood  has  the 
^  "Adolescence,"  vol.  ii. 


284  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

credit  of  being  a  garden  of  Eden;  but  it  is  rather  an 
enchanted  island,  full  of  strange  noises,  and  haunted 
by  a  Caliban." 

Certain  cases  and  causes  are  worth  examination. 
Vittorio  Alfieri,  a  child  of  eight,  devoured  the  rank 
herbs  of  the  court-yard  in  a  vain  endeavor  to  make  an 
end.  The  reason  appears  to  be  home  neglect,  and  a 
lack  of  home  affection  toward  a  child  morbidly  emotional 
and  demonstrative.  Cardan's  own  reason  was  his  am- 
bition, chafed  by  servitude  and  poverty,  and  embittered 
by  base  birth.  John  Stuart  Mill,  at  twenty-one,  falls 
into  a  nervous  reaction  from  his  strained  and  one- 
sided education,  which  makes  him  morbidly  conscious 
of  his  difference  from  other  lads  of  the  same  age.  During 
this  depression  he  sees  *'no  reason  why  I  should  go  on 
living,"  and  contemplates  throwing  down  the  heavy 
burden.  Religious  doubts  and  perplexities,  of  course, 
most  frequently  give  rise  to  this  impulse.  J.  Addington 
Symonds,  whose  fragmentary  autobiography  is  in- 
teresting largely  because  of  his  great  love  for  these 
records,  connects  his  own  wish  to  kill  himself  with  re- 
ligious doubt  and  ill-health.  John  Bunyan  and  John 
Crook  both  longed  for  death;  in  Crook's  case,  he  was 
afraid  to  have  a  knife  in  the  room. 

Tolstoi,  in  his  Confession,  declares  that  during  his 
long  and  intense  religious  struggle  he  was  not  at 
all  ill  when  he  wished  to  take  his  own  life.  "On  the 
contrary,"   he   writes,   ''I   rejoiced   in   a  moral   and 


THE  NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF  THE   PAST  285 

physical  force  which  I  have  rarely  met  with  among 
people  of  my  age."  To  him  suicide  was  a  method  to 
be  employed  by  strong  and  logical  men.  At  sixteen, 
Chateaubriand  tried  to  shoot  himself,  but  the  musket 
missed  fire.  The  clouds  of  sentimentality  hang  very 
thick  over  the  Memoires  d'Outre  Tombe,  and  it  is  hard 
to  accept  in  explanation  of  this  act  that  invention  of 
an  imaginary  lady-love,  which  the  youthful  Chateau- 
briand took  far  too  seriously. 

An  unusual  reason  for  self-destruction  is  given  by  that 
intrepid  friend  of  Catherine  II  of  Russia,  the  Princess 
Daschkaw.  Her  son's  misbehavior,  culminating  in  a 
mesalliance,  humihated  her  to  such  a  point  that  she 
seriously  contemplated  her  own  death. 

Much  more  easily  comprehensible  is  poor  little  Har- 
riet Martineau,  at  eight  years  old,  deaf,  and  ailing,  and 
full  of  terrors,  who  goes  into  the  kitchen  to  get  a 
carving-knife  to  cut  her  throat,  but  fails  to  find  one. 
"The  impulse  dwindled,"  she  writes,  "into  the  desire  of 
running  away."  George  Sand  rather  closely  analyzes 
her  own  suicidal  impulse;  she  believes  it  to  be  hereditary 
and  pathological,  but  immediately  the  result  of  religious 
doubt.  "Si  vive,  si  subtile,  si  bizarre,"  she  calls  it,  "une 
espece  de  folie."  A  narrow  escape  from  drowning,  due, 
at  least  partially,  to  this  impulse,  shocks  her  into  a  cure. 

That  singular  figure,  Solomon  Maimon,  in  one  of  his 
perpetual  drinking  bouts,  decides  upon  drowning,  and 
gets  into  the  water  as  far  as  his  waist,  when  the  eoJd 


286  THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

rouses  him.  He  does  not  take  the  incident  in  the  least 
seriously,  however,  but  speaks  of  it  as  a  ''serio-comic 
scene." 

Allusions  to  suicide  become  more  and  more  frequent 
with  Haydon  as  the  impulse  increases.  His  is  one  case 
where  we  may  watch  it  grow  to  the  point  of  actual 
accomplishment.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that 
Haydon  fed  on  morbid  horrors  even  before  his  mind 
became  affected.  We  find  him  —  a  most  affectionate 
and  devoted  father,  by  the  way  —  sitting  by  his  dying 
child  to  sketch  "that  look  of  tragic  power  in  dearest 
Georgy's  convulsion  fits!" 

Haydon  carries  out  his  intention;  others,  as  we  have 
seen,  chance  intervened  to  save.  Among  these  is  Edgar 
Quinet,  whom  an  unhappy  love-affair  had  driven  to  this 
extreme.  Loading  his  gun,  he  places  the  end  of  the  barrel 
in  his  mouth,  and  runs  some  distance  through  the  thick 
wood.    But  fate  spares  him,  and  he  accepts  the  verdict. 

The  fourteen  examples  above  cited  give  certain  evi- 
dence as  to  the  age  of  the  suicidal  impulse.  This  has, 
of  course,  been  studied  by  Morselli  and  others  from  the 
larger  outlook  furnished  by  official  statistics,  which 
these  cases  but  confirm.  Alfieri  and  Harriet  Martineau 
were  children  of  eight;  Cardan,  Quinet,  Chateaubriand, 
John  Stuart  Mill,  Symonds,  Crook,  and  Tolstoi,  experi- 
enced it  between  the  ages  of  sixteen  and  twenty-three; 
the  Princess  Daschkaw  was  older,  and  so  were  Maimon 
and  Haydon,  but  in  the  last  two  cases  insanity  and 


THE   NERVOUS   SYSTEMS   OF   THE. PAST  287 

drink  furnish  definite  cause.    Bunyan  gives  no  details 
as  to  age  or  circumstance. 

The  connection  between  so-called  supernatural  phe- 
nomena and  other  symptoms  of  a  depressed  nervous 
system,  such  as  a  desire  of  self-destruction,  may  not,  at 
first  sight,  appear  to  be  close;  yet  on  the  broader  lines 
of  subjective  human  experience  it  is  not  without  value 
to  glance  at  them  together.  Our  depressions,  our  mor- 
bid moods,  are  better  understood  to-day;  but  we  see 
they  are  not  peculiar  to  one  age  nor  to  one  race.  It  is 
true,  as  M.  Ribot  tells  us,  that  one  is  embarrassed  by 
the  number  of  documents  which  treat  of  human  suffer- 
ing; while,  as  for  happiness,  it  has  no  history.  Exercise 
of  the  artistic  and  intellectual  faculties,  which  will  be 
treated  later,  is  a  thing  apart;  but  as  to  misery,  ''the 
whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  together,'^  and 
a  comparison  of  the  causes  and  forms  of  mental  suffer- 
ing,  whether  religious  or  natural  or  obscure,  cannot  but 
be  fruitful  and  helpful  to  such  of  us  who  may  feel  that 
in  these  trials  we  stand  alone. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  SEXES 

Although  the  study  of  autobiography  repays  us  most 
richly  where  it  is  most  personal,  yet  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  we  gain  most  by  detaching  ourselves  from  the 
examination  of  particular  cases,  in  order  to  try  for  some 
generality,  and  then  to  see  what  comment  these  cases 
make  upon  our  thought.  General  attitudes,  rather  than 
special  information,  become  interesting  to  seek,  since 
in  the  general  attitudes  of  our  ancestors  lie  buried  our 
own  concrete  likes  and  disUkes,  prejudices  and  convic- 
tions. "The  dead,"  declares  Le  Bon,  "are  the  only 
undisputed  masters  of  the  living."  Bearing  this  in 
mind,  and  ridding  oneself  of  the  current  misconceptions 
on  the  whole  subject,  we  may  gather  much  from  study 
of  the  mutual  attitudes  of  men  and  women. 

For  if  there  be  one  subject  upon  which  the  auto- 
biographer  is  likely  to  write  fully,  it  is  the  sex-relation. 
Second  only  to  his  religious  feeling,  the  part  this  senti- 
ment plays  in  his  life  becomes  the  most  important  of 
all  its  influences.  No  one  writing  with  a  serious  inten- 
tion of  self-study  omits  to  treat  of  it.  True,  he  may, 
like  George  Sand  or  Goethe,  allow  himself  to  be  gov- 
erned in  the  writing  by  literary  convention  and  senti- 
ment, rather  than  by  the  truth;  or,  contrariwise,  like 


THE   RELATIONS   OF   THE   SEXES         289 

Rousseau,  he  may  permit  this  one  topic  to  assume  a 
disproportionate  relation.  But  he  always  gives  it  place. 
Even  David  Hume,  in  the  nine-page  autobiographical 
fragment  bearing  his  name,  is  careful  to  make  room  for 
the  statement:  ''I  took  a  particular  pleasure  in  the 
company  of  modest  women  ";  and  also  here  Heine  must 
have  a  laugh  at  himself:  ''I  still  love  women:  when  I 
was  cut  off  from  all  female  society  at  Gottingen,"  he 
says,  "1  got  a  cat!" 

If  this  be  so  mth  a  writer,  it  follows  that  the  reader 
may  be  sure  of  one  thing  in  any  full  and  candid  docu- 
ment: that  the  proportion  which  this  subject  bears  to  a 
person's  self-delineation,  it  has  borne  to  his  raind  and  life. 

In  partial  cases,  in  lives  of  which  the  Dichtung  und 
Wahrheit  and  the  Histoire  de  ma  Vie  are  typical 
examples,  where  the  sex-life  of  the  subject  is  veiled  or 
wholly  omitted,  the  reader  may  at  least  safely  bear  in 
mind  that  the  writer's  prevailing  attitude  toward  sex- 
questions  on  paper,  has  been  his  attitude  toward  these 
questions  in  life.  If  this  be  true,  then,  there  is  much 
illumination  to  be  gained  from  any  sincere  self-presen- 
tation, however  shght  or  partial. 

The  two  ideas  above  emphasized  cannot  be  too 
strongly  insisted  upon,  from  the  reader's  point  of  view. 
The  act  of  literary  composition  may  distort  or  exag- 
gerate a  feeling;  it  does  not  create  the  accent,  the 
emphasis,  the  quality  of  that  feeling.  However  wild 
Goethe's  assertions  about  platonic  love  may  seem  to  us, . 


290  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

yet,  unquestionably,  the  sentimentality  which  caused 
him  to  make  them,  underlay  and  colored  all  of  his  rela- 
tions with  women.  As  an  old  man,  he  gives  us  only  the 
enduring  residue  of  a  sentiment  which  had  governed 
him  in  his  exciting  and  excited  youth.  He  has  forgotten 
the  rest.  Where  the  line  between  the  intellectual- 
nature  and  the  sex-nature  has  been  defined  and  sharp 
in  life,  then  it  is  equally  defined  and  sharp  in  the 
personal  narrative.  So  it  is  seen  in  George  Sand,  in 
Catherine  II  of  Russia,  in  Vittorio  Alfieri.  Nature  is 
betrayed  by  the  autobiographer's  voice,  and  accent, 
and  emphasis;  he  cannot  hide,  disguise,  or  omit  it.  If 
he  is  healthy,  normal,  idealistic,  it  shows;  if  he  is  per- 
verted, cynical,  disproportioned,  morbid,  vicious,  it  will 
out.  In  slight  acts,  little  reflections,  trifling  habits  of 
mind,  nature  seizes  hold  of  his  pen,  and  writes  what  he 
is,  large  and  clear. 

When  Monluc  declares  of  love  that  ''  cel^  est  du  tout 
contraire  h  un  bon  coeur";  describes  how  he  wore  a  lady's 
colors:  "  Jeportoisgriset  blanc  pour  I'amourd'une  dame, 
de  qui  j'estois  serviteur  lorsque  j'avois  le  loisir";  it  is 
reasonable  to  infer  that  women  meant  comparatively 
little  to  him.  When  Catherine  II  remarks  of  her  love- 
affairs:  *'I  was  a  true  gentleman,"  we  feel  it  must  be 
as  true  as  that  she  was  no  lady;  she  is  able  some- 
how to  assume  a  masculine  responsibility  toward  the 
subject,  and  it  is  a  different  responsibility.  Neither 
Catherine's  intellect  nor  her  sovereignty  was  influenced 


THE   RELATIONS   OF   THE   SEXES         291 

by  her  successive  lovers;  she  preserved  that  side  of  life 
apart  from  her  work,  as  a  man  does.  Her  predecessor, 
the  Empress  Elizabeth,  will  never  be  anything  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world  but  a  royal  courtezan;  whereas  the 
masculine  vigor,  the  masculine  aloofness  of  Catherine, 
serve,  at  least,  to  place  her  in  another  category. 

That  honest  and  jolly  Madame  Mere  du  Regent 
presents  the  attitude  of  the  reasonable  wife  desiring  to 
make  friends  with  a  husband  who  does  not  love  her. 
Like  Catherine,  like  Marguerite  de  Valois,  she  decides 
to  be  the  confidante  and  the  good  comrade  of  this 
stranger,  to  whom,  through  no  will  of  either,  she  is 
linked.  The  other  two  ladies,  being  persons  of  tempera- 
ment, found  the  business  unremunerative  and  enniiyeux: 
they  therefore,  after  a  while,  by  murder  and  divorce 
freed  themselves  from  the  task.  But  the  outspoken 
Madame  is  not  of  their  type.  She  worked  thirty  years 
to  gain  her  lord's  esteem  and  confidence,  and  then  — 
she  tells  it  with  real  bitterness  —  he  had  to  go  and  die ! 
Her  judgment  of  the  Due  d'Orleans'  character,  her 
analysis  of  his  weaknesses,  is  capitally  impersonal;  yet 
it  lacks  the  biting  touch  which  causes  Hortense  Mancini, 
Duchess  de  Mazarin,  to  describe  her  husband.  "Jamais 
personne  n'eut  les  manieres  si  douces  en  public,  et  si 
rudes  dans  le  domestique,'^  says  Hortense,  angrily;  and 
the  charge  is  not  uncommon.  Most  illuminating  and 
humorous  is  this  last  lady's  extreme  boredom  with  the 
sentimental  emportements  of  her  sister  Marie.   Being  of  a 


2n  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

cooler  disposition  herself,  she  tells  us,  almost  with  a 
shrug,  how  Marie  expected  her  to  be  in  love  all  the  time, 
and  what  a  bore  Hortense  found  it.  In  this  she  is  like  the 
Electress  Sophia  of  Hanover,  who  found  Italian  society- 
insupportable,  because  "nothing  is  thought  of  but  love." 
Sophia  endures  with  dignity  and  patience  a  jealous  and 
boorish  husband,  for  whom  she  seems  to  have  felt  sincere 
affection.  When  the  marriage  is  proposed,  she  candidly 
avows,  "a  good  establishment  was  all  I  cared  for,"  and 
of  the  suitor  she  says:  *'I,  being  resolved  to  love  him, 
was  delighted  to  find  how  amiable  he  was."  Yet,  not- 
withstanding his  rude  and  wearisome  jealousies,  her 
marriage  was  not,  on  the  whole,  unhappy.  Despite  the 
irony  of  Wilhelmine  of  Bareith,  she  treats  tenderly  of 
her  husband  and  of  their  marriage;  whereas  she  rarely 
mentions  her  daughter,  and  then  with  coldness. 

Here  are  extracts  enough  to  show  how  inevitably 
the  writer's  attitude  will  come  to  the  surface,  willy- 
nilly.  It  is  interesting  that  they  are  all  women,  because 
women  are  far  more  reticent  as  to  the  sex-life  than  are 
men.  There  are  absolute  reasons  for  this,  no  doubt; 
the  whole  business  is  more  important  to  the  woman. 
Frankness  like  Madame 's  as  to  her  marital  arrange- 
ments, or  that  of  Marguerite  de  Valois  about  her  hus- 
band's mistress,  la  Fosseuse,  or  of  both  Mancinis,  and 
the  Electress  Sophia,  is  not  usual.  An  English  actress, 
Ellen  Terry,  in  her  recent  Story  of  My  Life,  alludes 
to  "my  love  of  being  in  love,"  and  to  what  she  terms 


THE  RELATIONS   OF  THE  SEXES         293 

other  ''bourgeois  qualities/'  such  as  "the  love  of  a 
home  and  the  dislike  of  solitude."  This  confession 
comes  upon  one  almost  with  a  shock,  although  women 
in  general  acknowledge  the  truth  of  these  sentiments. 
The  famous  Mademoiselle  Georges,  indeed,  gives  the  in- 
timate details  of  her  liaison  with  Napoleon,  in  a  manner 
and  with  details  of  a  startling  candor;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  contemporary  French  actress,  Sarah 
Bernhardt,  amazingly  full  in  details  of  family  life,  child- 
hood, education,  ideas,  etc.,  cuts  the  whole  subject,  in 
what  may  be  best  described  as  a  pointed  manner.  Marie 
Bashkirtsev  is  often  cited  as  an  example  of  candor, 
but  the  love  she  minutely  describes  is  one  she  felt  at 
twelve  3'ears  old  for  a  man  she  never  met;  as  she 
grows  into  a  woman  she  becomes  reserved.  Perhaps 
the  rarest  admission  of  all  is  Miss  Cobbe's:  "No  man 
has  ever  desired  to  share  it  [her  life],  nor  has  she  seen 
the  man  she  would  have  wished  to  ask  her  to  do  so." 
The  entire  question  of  the  relation  which  the  sex-life 
bears  to  the  intellectual  life  of  men  and  women  respec- 
tively, is  indeed  obscure;  and  if  the  jottings  in  this 
section  serve  no  other  purpose,  they  may  at  least  serve 
as  a  gathering  of  material  for  some  future  handling  of 
the  topic. 

Just  as  the  Italian  cases  are  found  to  be  most  repre- 
sentative in  their  expression,  along  the  line  of  human 
experience  in  general,  so  we  find  their  pages  holding  the 
most  salient  and  typical  pictures  of  affection  and  pas- 


294  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Bion.  Again,  one  must  insist  on  the  immense  value  of 
the  Italian  ability  to  distinguish  between  passion  and 
lesser  degrees  of  feeling.  Few  as  are  the  Italian  sub- 
jective autobiographies,  their  quality  in  this  regard 
lends  them  the  highest  value,  and  gives  their  data  im- 
mense importance  to  the  student.  Each  single  figure 
stands  luminously  forth,  a  type  of  human  temperament. 
Let  us  say  what  we  will  as  to  the  advisability  of  observ- 
ing individualities  as  types,  of  yielding  perhaps  too 
readily  to  the  temptation  of  so  defining  them,  yet  when 
such  a  type  is  found,  it  becomes  at  once  more  suggestive 
and  more  human.  When  I  see  in  a  friend  certain  Cellini 
or  Goldoni  characteristics,  I  understand  much  that 
would  seem  otherwise  perplexing  in  his  nature. 

The  artistic  sensualist  to-day,  no  doubt,  is  less  highly- 
colored  than  was  Cellini,  for  nature  to-day  uses  no  such 
brilliant  palette  as  she  did  in  the  Renaissance;  yet  one 
recognizes  as  wholly  familiar  the  fact  that  Cellini's  only 
idealism  on  the  subject  of  woman  is  part  of  his  love  of 
art  and  his  worship  of  beauty.  More  appealing  to  our 
modern  ideals  of  character  evolution  is  Vittorio  Alfieri's 
life  of  himself.  Alfieri's  autobiography  might  be  taken 
as  a  text-book  of  how  not  to  treat  a  child.  In  every  single 
instance  one  would  act  differently  to-day.  At  school  he 
says  he  was  "asino  fra  asini  e  sotto  un  asino."  ^  He 
had  bad  food,  bad  influences,  bad  discipline.  The  book 
paints  in  touches  of  minute  fidelity  a  young  boor, 
*  Ass  among  asses  and  under  an  ass. 


THE   RELATIONS   OF  THE   SEXES         295 

violent,  morbid,  vicious,  and  illiterate,  turning  grad- 
ually toward  self -education  and  development.  In  the 
earlier  portions  Alfieri  describes  a  lack  of  self-control 
amounting  almost  to  madness;  he  lives,  in  fact,  what 
he  terms  ''una  vita  vero  brute  bestia,"^  adding  that  he 
blindly  obeyed  his  own  nature, — "ubbedendo  cieca- 
menta  alia  natura  mia."  His  temper  was  so  violent  that 
he  nearly  killed  a  faithful  valet  for  accidentally  pulling 
his  hair.  He  was  badly  educated,  untrained,  idle,  and 
fond  of  horses  and  low  companions;  but  through  it 
all  he  was  a  strong  man.  To  cure  himself  of  an  un- 
worthy infatuation  he  bound  himself  to  a  chair  with 
ropes,  and  remained  there,  sobbing  and  cursing,  until 
past  this  ''access  of  furious  imbecility. " ^ 

When  Alfieri  met  the  Countess  of  Albany  he  had 
already  begun  to  try  and  free  himself  from  the  violences 
of  his  nature.  He  heads  this  portion  of  the  Vitay 
Real  Liberation :  the  First  Sonnet,  but  it  is  his  love 
which  opens  the  true  springs  of  poetry.  Exceedingly 
susceptible  to  woman's  influence  as  he  was,  it  is  an 
honor  to  this  woman  that  she  exerted  hers  wholly  to 
encourage  him  in  study  and  the  creative  life.  What 
he  had  of  natural  genius  was  little  compared  to  his 
splendid  capacity  for  self -development.  Eccentric  and 
original  he  remained  always,  but  from  this  moment  he 
turned  all  the  impetuous  fervor  of  his  disposition  into 

1  The  life  of  a  truly  brute  beast. 

2  Quel  accesso  di  furiosa  imbecillit^. 


296  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

work  and  study.  He  rode  over  literature  as  he  had 
ridden  in  the  Roman  streets;  his  education  was  made 
up  in  leaps  and  bounds;  his  passion  for  creative  work, 
and  for  the  lady,  appear  to  have  equally  increased. 
The  terms  which  he  uses  to  describe  her  and  her 
influence,  even  Mill  has  not  surpassed.  His  love  was, 
indeed,  "impetuous  and  fervent,  but  not  the  less  pro- 
found and  felt  and  lasting."  In  her  biography  of  Louise 
of  Albany,  Vernon  Lee  attests  the  truth  of  Alfieri's 
self-portraiture,  —  his  ''  numb,  morbid  boyhood,  the  at- 
tempt at  child  suicide,"  —  and  suggests  (with  justice) 
some  probable  nervous  condition,  later  outgrown. 
This  author  remarks  on  the  unattractiveness  (to  every- 
one else)  of  the  Countess  of  Albany.  Their  relation  had 
all  the  sincerity,  the  mutual  inspiration,  of  marriage  in 
its  highest  form.  No  modern  ideal  partnership  of  taste 
and  aims  seems  ever  to  have  been  more  completely 
realized. 

The  comparison  of  Mill  comes  readily  to  the  mind, 
but  it  is  a  comparison  rather  of  results  achieved  than 
of  likeness  in  kind.  In  the  case  of  Alfieri,  intellectual 
stimulus  was  what  he  most  needed  to  make  him  a 
healthy  and  sane  creature,  and  this  Louise  of  Albany 
gave;  in  the  case  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  it  was  an  emotional 
stimulus  which  he  most  needed  to  make  him  a  sane 
and  healthy  creature,  and  this  Mrs.  Taylor  gave.  Un- 
doubtedly the  world  would  have  been  greatly  the 
poorer  had  these  two  women  been  of  a  lower  type  — 


THE   RELATIONS   OF   THE   SEXES         297 

the  type,  let  us  say,  of  Frau  von  Stein.  The  tragic  Umi- 
tations  of  Mill's  education  had  bred  in  him  an  intense 
idealism,  which  disillusion  must  have  turned  to  bitter- 
ness. Every  one  of  Mill's  readers  knows  the  words  in 
which  he  draws  the  heights  of  his  wife's  character,  and 
of  their  friendship  in  marriage.  It  amuses  the  Carlyles 
and  other  omniscient  acquaintances  to  laugh  at  this, 
to  suggest  that  Mrs.  Mill  profited  by  her  husband's  in- 
experience of  women.  Another  view  suggests  that  it 
might  be  a  harder  task  to  deceive  as  to  her  intellectual 
qualities  a  man  of  Mill's  attainments  and  standards, 
than  if  he  had  been  more  a  man  of  the  world.  In  any 
case,  there  is  drawn  an  ideal  relation  between  a  man 
and  a  woman  by  John  Stuart  Mill,  by  Vittorio  Alfieri, 
and,  in  a  slighter  case,  by  Giovanni  Dupr^,  which  may 
truly  serve  to  reanimate  the  faint-hearted  idealist. 

Men's  notion  of  what  woman's  superiority  consists 
in  is,  in  truth,  variable  enough.  The  historian  Agrippa 
d'Aubigne  deeply  wept  his  young  wife's  loss,  yet  all  he 
can  tell  us  of  her  virtue  is  the  one  anecdote  that  he  sent 
her  a  sealed  box  *'avec  defense  de  I'ouvrir,  ce  qu'elle 
observa  contre  I'ordinaire  de  son  sexe."  Evidently 
Eve,  Pandora,  and  Fatima  stood  for  the  typical  woman 
during  this  era  also! 

What  we  term  the  expediency  view  of  marriage  is 
as  frequent  in  the  personal  narrative  as  the  idealistic 
is  rare.  Often,  also,  it  is  carried  to  an  extreme  which 
shocks  our  modern  feeling  of  romance.    The  German 


298  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

scholar,  Thomas  Platter,  thus  describes  the  important 
event;  "My  cousin  and  his  wife  recommended  me  to 
marry  their  housekeeper,  Anne  .  .  .  and  [said]  they 
would  make  us  their  heirs.  I  allowed  myself  to  be  per- 
suaded and  celebrated  the  wedding."  This  simphcity 
is  surpassed  only  by  Thomas  Bewick,  the  English  en- 
graver, who  says  of  his  future  wife:  ** Though  her 
character  was  innocence  itself,  she  was  mentally  one  of 
the  weakest  of  her  sex."  This  admirable  qualification 
made  Bewick  the  more  determined,  and  he  records  the 
marriage  as  a  success.  The  husband  chosen  for  Made- 
moiselle Delaunay,  the  Baron  de  Staal,  is  depicted 
in  terms  no  less  candid,  one  of  her  first  requisites 
being  that  he  should  keep  a  sufficient  table;  but 
we  know  that  this  match  was  a  pis  oiler,  and  that 
Mademoiselle  Delaunay  had  already  passed  through 
her  little  romance  with  M.  de  Silly.  She  treats  of 
this  with  her  own  inimitably  light  touch  and  with  a 
smiling  cynicism,  yet  there  was  a  wound  of  which 
she  cannot  conceal  the  scar.  Then  there  are  wounds 
which  leave  no  scar.  Kotzebue,  though  frantic  at 
the  loss  of  his  wife,  forgets  to  tell  the  reader  that  he 
married  again.  Dr.  Edgeworth  weds  one  sister  at 
the  request  of  another;  and  Jung  Stilling's  dying 
second  wife  urges  him  to  take  her  friend,  Eliza,  for 
his  third;  which  he  does.  Madame  Roland's  marriage 
of  respect  she  declares  to  have  been  happy;  and  she 
believes  that  the  intellect  should  always  guide  one's 


THE   RELATIONS   OF   THE   SEXES         299 

choice;  there  are  traces,  however,  throughout  her  hfe, 
of  imperfect  emotional  development.  George  Fox  lifted 
the  question  of  matrimony  into  the  realm  of  direct 
religious  inspiration,  taking,  as  it  were,  his  orders 
from  the  Deity,  in  these  words:  ...  ''I  had  seen 
from  the  Lord  a  considerable  time  before,  that  I  should 
take  Margaret  Fell  to  be  my  wife;  and  when  I  first 
mentioned  it  to  her  she  felt  the  answer  of  life  from 
God  thereunto  ...  It  opened  upon  me  from  the  Lord 
that  the  thing  should  be  accomplished."  A  quaintly 
self -deceitful  account  is  given  by  "that  ancient  ser- 
vant of  Christ,"  Stephen  Crisp,  of  his  second  marriage, 
to  which  he  first  alludes  in  merely  general  terms: 
**I  received  an  opening  in  the  Truth  that  the  Lord 
would  give  me  another  wife  ";  but  a  little  further  on 
there  is  a  pious  mention  of  "my  dear  friend,  whom  I 
had  seen  would  be  given  to  me  to  wife"  —  thus  showing 
that  the  affair  was  not  quite  so  impersonal  to  Crisp  as 
he  would  have  us  think.  All  happy  and  successful 
Quaker  marriages  are  dwelt  on  much  in  these  terms; 
those  which  did  not  turn  out  so  well  are  mentioned 
as  "snares,"  or  as  "chastisement  from  the  Lord's 
hand." 

So  completely  a  pious  matter  is  the  marriage  of 
John  Livingstone,  Robert  Blair's  friend,  that  he  thus 
treats  of  it:  "It  was  above  one  month  after,  before 
I  got  marriage  affection  to  her,  although  she  was  for 
personal  enduements   beyond    many  of    her   equals. 


300  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I  got  it  not  till  I  obtained  it  by  prayer;  but  thereafter 
I  had  greater  difficulty  to  moderate  it." 

In  certain  cases  of  religious  conversion,  the  very 
happiness  of  the  tie  is  used  as  an  awful  example  of  the 
low  spiritual  state  of  the  subject.  Jane  Pearson,  Friend, 
cannot  forgive  herself  for  being  happily  married  at 
twenty-one.  '^  United  to  a  choice  husband,  I  swimmed 
in  an  ocean  of  pleasure!"  she  exclaims,  in  horror  at 
her  lost  condition.  Tolstoi's  marriage  turns  him  tem- 
porarily from  the  dark  paths  of  religious  despair,  though 
it  cannot  keep  him  away.  Dr.  Edmund  Calamy  thus 
states  his  reasons  for  the  step:  "The  lady  had  univer- 
sally a  good  character,  was  a  member  of con- 
gregation, of  a  singular  good  temper,  and  one  of  my 
mother's  own  recommending."  The  requirements  of 
Bishop  Newton,  the  famous  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  (about 
1750),  run  to  a  formidable  catalogue,  for  the  lady  must 
have  some  "knowledge  and  experience  of  the  world, 
be  clever,  sensible  and  a  prudent  manager  and  econ- 
omist," one  who  could  "lay  out  his  money  to  the  best 
advantage  .  .  .  supply  his  table  handsomely,  yet  not 
expensively,  and  do  the  honors  of  it  in  a  becoming  man- 
ner." She  must  be  also  a  tender  nurse,  and  not  be  "per- 
petually gadding  abroad"!  Fortunately  for  Dr.  Newton, 
he  had  known  this  paragon  from  a  "little  child  in  a 
white  frock";  and  he  is  careful  to  print  what  others 
thought  as  to  her  extreme  suitability.  But  his  ideas  had 
surely  become  enlarged,  since  his  first  wife  is  simply 


THE  RELATIONS   OF  THE  SEXES  301 

described  as  ''an  unaffected,  modest,  decent  young 
woman"!  That  singular  philosopher  Solomon  Maimon, 
married  at  eleven,  and  was  a  father  before  he  was  four- 
teen. That  his  marriage  ended  in  divorce  does  not  sur- 
prise us  after  reading  the  account  of  his  habits  and 
personality.  He  asserts  that  his  wife  was  a  ''woman  of 
rude  education  and  manners,  but  of  good  sense  and 
courage."  The  only  reason  given  us  by  Flavins  Jose- 
phus  for  divorcing  his  first  wife,  is  that  he  was  not 
much  pleased  with  her  behavior;  of  his  second  choice 
he  speaks  in  high  terms.  The  attitude  of  Madame 
d'Epinay  toward  her  husband,  and  of  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau  toward  his  Therese,  are  simply  that  of  their 
age  and  society;  they  present  few  distinctive  features. 
The  same  is  true  of  their  love-affairs.  One  may  get 
much  amusement  by  reading  of  Emilie's  sentiments 
for  M.  Dupin  de  Francoeuil,  and  those  of  Jean  Jacques 
for  the  fair  Madame  d'Houdetot,  but  one  gets  slight 
illumination  from  them  on  the  eternal  subject.  A  line 
of  Alfieri  is  worth  more  than  their  entire  existence, 
for  there  is  little  reality  about  them. 

Goldoni's  extreme  prudence  in  matrimonial  arrange- 
ments has  already  been  noticed;  it  is  surpassed 
only  by  the  two  English  lawyers,  Roger  North  and 
Sir  Symonds  d'Ewes.  The  first  is  deeply  in  love  with  a 
young  lady,  "but  her  fortune  and  mine  were  not 
enough  to  support  the  outward  form  of  honor  in  the 
way  of  living  ..."    So  he  himself  arranges  for  her  a 


302  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

match  with  another,  and  observes  with  satisfaction  that 
it  turned  out  well.  As  for  d'Ewes,  his  desire  to  arrange 
everything  for  everybody  in  a  systematic  manner,  pre- 
sents a  most  diverting  picture  to  modern  eyes.  His  first 
attraction  is  to  a  lady  ten  years  his  senior,  but  he  aban- 
dons the  match  because  this  disparity  "would  doubtless, 
in  process  of  time,  have  bred  much  nauseating  incon- 
venience." The  term  is  strong,  but  d'Ewes  evidently 
felt  it,  since  he  finally  settled  on  a  girl  of  thirteen. 
"She  was  every  way  so  comely,  as  that  alone,  if  all  the 
rest  had  wanted,  might  have  rendered  her  desirable,'' 
is  his  comment.  After  dwelling  for  pages  on  the  social 
and  pecuniary  advantages  of  the  alliance  —  which 
fluctuates  uncertainly  for  a  time,  owing  to  "the  mar- 
velous inconstancy"  of  the  bride's  grandmother,  — 
they  are  finally  wed;  but  the  marriage  is  not  con- 
summated for  more  than  a  year,  d'Ewes  declaring,  "it 
being  perhaps  the  first  example  that  ever  was  of  that 
kind,"  and  furnishing  us  with  a  series  of  prudent  reasons 
for  this  postponement.  His  cool  disposition  and  his 
energetic  meddling  in  his  own  and  his  wife's  family, 
brought  to  pass  a  number  of  quarrels  and  breaches, 
by  which  d'Ewes  is  sorely  tried  and  vexed.  When  his 
own  father  wishes  to  re-marry  with  a  young  lady  he 
takes  this  tone:  "I  should  not  only  reap  much  discom- 
fort in  my  present  life,"  d'Ewes  writes,  indignantly, 
"as  he  might  be  drawn  to  give  away  his  estate  to  the 
issue  of  a  second  wife  .  .  .  but  .  .   .  having  abundant 


THE   RELATIONS   OF  THE   SEXES         S03 

experience  of  his  inconstancy  ...  my  wishes  were  to 
see  him  well  and  happily  married  to  some  good  and 
ancient  widow  every  way  fit  for  him."  D'Ewes's  father 
—  ''who  was  naturally  marvelous  inconstant"  —  does 
not  take  at  all  to  the  ''ancient  widow"  idea,  and  there 
ensues  a  bitter  quarrel  which  the  reasonable  son  cannot 
understand. 

Is  romance  really  dying  out?  The  marriage  of  Paul- 
inus  Pellseus,  after  a  series  of  amours  with  the  slaves 
of  his  father's  house,  reads  hke  an  eighteenth-century 
affair.  When  one  reads  stories  Hke  this,  or  Herbert  of 
Cherbury's  account  of  his  own  marital  arrangements, 
they  give  us  pause :  we  are  not  so  sure.  Do  people  now- 
adays arrange  marriages  for  sons  of  fifteen  as  "a  due 
remedy  for  lasciviousness "  ?  At  this  age  Herbert  mar- 
ries an  heiress  of  twenty-one,  from  deliberate  motives 
of  physical  and  worldly  expediency,  among  which  is 
the  wish  to  "save  the  cost  of  a  steward  on  the  estate." 
When  Lady  Herbert  refuses,  ten  years  later,  to  follow 
her  husband  to  France,  he  states  her  refusal  as  a  valid 
and  sufficient  excuse  for  infidehty,  protesting  only 
that  his  adventures  were  not  accompanied  with  the 
"dissimulation  and  falsehood  .  .  .  commonly  found 
in  men  addicted  to  love  women." 

Here,  at  least,  is  an  attitude  whose  candor  one 
may  respect;  how  much  more  sturdy  it  is  than  that, 
for  instance,  of  Chateaubriand!  "Madame  de  Chateau- 
briand m'admire,"  etc.,  and   his  talk  of  owing  "une 


S04  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tendre  et  ^ternelle  reconnoissance  a  ma  femme"  for 
not  maldng  trouble  over  his  infidelities,  which,  of 
course,  fill  him  with  regret.  **How  sorry  should  I  be 
to  cause  a  moment  of  chagrin  to  Madame  de  Chateau- 
briand! "  he  exclaims  with  the  most  polite  insincerity. 
From  his  boyhood's  imaginary  lady-love,  noted  by  no 
less  a  scientist  than  M.  Ribot,  down  to  Madame  de 
Beaumont,  the  vicomte's  relations  with  women  are 
shadowed  by  clouds  of  haze.  His  own  Olympian 
condescension  toward  the  sex  produces  an  effect  of 
indescribable  fatuity. 

Gibbon  must  not  be  forgotten,  who ''sighed  as  a  lover," 
but  ''  obeyed  as  a  son,"  in  the  case  of  a  match  unexcep- 
tionable from  the  personal  point  of  view,  and  obeyed, 
moreover,  that  father  whose  death  he  records  as  "the 
only  event  which  saved  me  from  a  life  of  hopeless  obscur- 
ity and  indigence  "!  Under  the  circumstances,  not  for- 
getting either  Gibbon's  remark  that  he  could  not  regret 
the  early  death  of  his  five  brothers  and  sisters,  be- 
cause their  life  "would  have  been  sufficient  to  oppress 
my  inheritance,"  one  feels  inclined  to  congratulate 
Mademoiselle  Curchod  on  her  escape.  In  his  fife  of 
Gibbon,  Mr.  Morrison  comments  on  this  coldness,  and 
believes  Gibbon  was  more  affectionate  than  the  memoirs 
show.  Since  he  can  instance  in  support  of  this  view 
only  that  Gibbon  behaved  in  a  considerate  and  dutiful 
manner  toward  his  aunt  and  stepmother,  the  reader  is 
disposed  to  take  the  Memoirs  at  their  face  value.    In- 


THE  RELATIONS   OF   THE   SEXES         305 

deed,  to  any  sensitive  nature  the  ugliness  of  these  sen- 
tences could  not  have  been  permitted  to  stand;  they 
would  in  themselves  have  jarred,  demanding  further 
explanation,  even  if  their  recording  had  been  due  to 
some  special  conscientiousness.  To  a  temperament 
like  Franklin's,  a  wholly  utilitarian  view  of  marriage 
and  the  sex-relation  generally  seems  entirely  consistent 
with  the  rest  of  his  reasonable  philosophy.  It  is  inter- 
esting that  this  attitude  is  shared  by  such  unedifying 
examples  as  de  Retz,  Bussy,  Bassompierre,  de  Bernis, 
so  that  Franklin's  remarks  on  the  subject  read  like  a 
translation  from  the  French.  They,  doubtless,  repre- 
sent a  consistent  eighteenth-century  view.  In  the 
case  of  Goethe,  it  has  been  seen  how  much  his  view 
of  the  subject  was  affected  by  the  age  at  which  he 
wrote  —  an  age  when  most  men  turn  a  quiet  back- 
ward glance  on  the  emotions  of  their  earlier  vigor. 
Many  and  many  writers  of  personal  records  are  tinged 
in  all  their  ideas  with  middle-age  dogmas  of  conven- 
iency  and  expediency.  It  cannot  be  forgotten  how  this 
latter  change  has  affected  the  narratives  wherein  Augus- 
tin  and  Abelard  tell  of  the  passions  of  their  youth. 
And  yet,  notwithstanding  their  self-disapproval,  the 
reader  beholds  them  scarred,  suffering:  Augustin  un- 
able to  forget  the  woman  who  had  borne  him  children; 
Abelard  tortured  by  an  even  deeper  humiliation. 

Confessions  of  genuine  passion  are  undoubtedly  rare. 
One  of  the  most  convincing  and  human  of  all  is  that 


S06  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier;  it  is,  perchance,  the 
more  affecting  as  it  stands  out  against  a  background  of 
stiff  and  artificial  magnificence.  Not  a  few  books  have 
been  founded  upon  this  memoire;  not  one  of  them  is 
so  interesting  or  so  valuable  as  the  book  itself.  This 
big,  jolly,  bouncing  Anne  Marie  Louise  d' Orleans  states 
naively  her  arrogant  reason  for  the  undertaking.  **  J'ai 
autrefois  eu  grande  peine  a  concevoir/'  she  observes,  '*de 
quoi  Tesprit  d'une  personne  accoutum^e  a  la  cour,  et  nee 
pour  y  etre  avec  le  rang  que  ma  naissance  m'y  donne, 
se  pouvait  entretenir,  lorsqu'elle  se  trouve  reduite  ^ 
demeurer  a  la  campagne;  car  il  m'avoit  toujours  sem- 
bloit  que  rien  ne  me  pouvoit  divertir  dans  une  eloigne- 
ment  force;  et  que  d'etre  hors  de  la  cour,  c'etoit  aux 
grands  etre  en  pleine  solitude,  malgr^  le  nombre  de 
leurs  domestiques  et  la  compagnie  de  ceux  qui  les 
visitent."  Mademoiselle  goes  on  to  observe  that,  not- 
withstanding these  conditions,  she  was  able  to  pass 
her  exile  agreeably  enough,  by  setting  down,  as  exactly 
as  possible,  the  events  of  her  life  from  childhood  to 
the  present  hour.  One  is  irresistibly  reminded  of  Mrs. 
Elton  and  Maple  Grove  and  the  barouche  landau,  when- 
ever Mademoiselle  touches  on  her  own  extraordinary 
eminence.  By  nature  active,  generous,  impulsive, 
stormy;  antithetical  in  every  way  to  the  stiff  and  formal 
surroundings;  she  is  a  figure  of  restless  energy,  perpet- 
ually struggling  to  maintain  her  balance  on  the  lofty 
pinnacle  whereon  she  finds  herself.    Her  over-flattered 


THE  RELATIONS   OF  THE  SEXES         307 

childhood  caused  her  early  to  develop,  she  says,  "un 
esprit  de  vanite  fort  incommode."  She  is  as  candid 
as  possible:  "Je  ne  fusse  pas  belle  "  is  her  observation 
of  herself  as  a  'parti;  and  all  her  impetuous  and  touchy 
pride  is  set  only  on  the  idea  of  an  establishment  be- 
fitting her  exalted  position.  This  becomes  a  fixed  idea; 
like  the  proud  princess  in  the  fairy-tale,  she  is  very 
hard  to  suit;  match  after  match  falls  through,  till 
her  father,  and  Louis  XIV,  her  ^^heau  cousin,'^  get 
thoroughly  tired  of  her  exigencies.  She  was  the 
richest  princess  in  all  France;  quick-tempered  and 
rough,  she  loved  riding  and  billiards  and  climbing 
{'^je  grimpai  comme  un  chat "),  and  rude  practical  jokes. 
All  this  she  knows,  and  that  her  ^^imagination  vive'^ 
often  pushed  her  to  extremes.  True  she  was  not  sensi- 
tive, for  she  opened  and  read  the  private  letters  of  her 
friend,  Madame  de  Fiesque;  and  yet  she  says:  "I  have  a 
good  heart ";  and  when  her  father  died,  she  burst  out 
bawling  like  a  baby !  The  whole  of  volume  four  is  taken 
up  with  the  unfortunate  passion  which  befell  this 
proud  woman  at  forty-three  years  of  age;  and  it  is  de- 
veloped with  feeling,  with  sincerity,  and  with  the  most 
touching  self-abnegation.  The  Due  de  Lauzun  is  quite 
evidently  not  serious,  and  is  much  perplexed  and 
overwhelmed  when  he  finds  that  she  is.  In  the  first 
rush  of  her  feeUng  and  impetuosity,  she  very  nearly 
gets  the  King's  permission  for  the  match  —  the  in- 
tensity of  her  sincerity  shakes  even  that  royal  iceberg. 


308  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

She  makes  every  sacrifice  of  pride;  she  does  the  pro- 
posing; she  writes  "C'est  vous/'  on  a  slip  of  paper  and 
hands  it  to  Lauzun  in  the  dance.  She  is  so  mortified 
by  the  extent  of  her  agitation  that  she  longs  to  be  alone; 
she  describes  piteously  how  she  does  not  even  know 
what  she  said  to  him.  Then  the  King's  consent  is  with- 
drawn, and  the  tepid  lover  gets  into  cover  as  quickly 
as  possible.  Mademoiselle,  poor  soul,  begs  and  pleads; 
she  neither  eats  nor  sleeps;  she  laments  in  public,  till 
Lauzun  himself  begs  her  to  cease;  she  weeps  even  in  the 
dance,  before  all  the  court.  It  is  indeed  strange,  she 
thinks,  that,  *'  nee  avec  des  grandeurs  et  des  biens  con- 
siderables .  .  .  Dieu  a  permis  que  ma  vie  a  ete  traver- 
s^e  par  milles  affaires  d^sagreables  ";  which  reproach 
shows  again  her  attitude.  Nothing  more  touching  was 
ever  read,  and  the  disillusionment  of  the  end  is  the 
final  stroke  of  fate. 

Then,  among  others,  there  is  Leonora  Christina  of 
Denmark,  who  bore  her  twenty-one  years  of  imprison- 
ment wholly  on  account  of  love  and  loyalty  to  Corfitz 
Ulfeldt,  her  husband.  And  Marie  Mancini,  who  says 
much  less  of  her  love  for  le  roi  soleil,  but  her  one  ad- 
mission is  significant.  "Jamais  rien  en  ma  vie  n'a  tant 
touchy  mon  ^me"  are  her  words;  and  they  are  sincere. 
Other  passions,  in  and  outside  of  marriage,  are  mov- 
ingly drawn  for  us;  such  as  Lady  Anne  Halkett's  and 
Sir  Kenelm  Digby's.  But  Sir  Kenelm's  flowery  euphu- 
ism means  less  than  the  wifely  fire  of  Margaret,  Duchess 


THE  RELATIONS   OF  THE  SEXES         309 

of  Newcastle :  "  When  absent  from  my  Lord,  it  did  break 
my  sleeps  and  distemper  my  health";  or  the  simple 
statement  of  another  loving  woman,  Lady  Fanshawe: 
"We  never  had  but  one  mind  throughout  our  lives.'* 
Theobald  Wolfe  Tone,  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,  P,  G. 
Hamerton,  Marmontel,  W.  Button,  and  the  merry 
Colley  Gibber,  are  examples  of  those  who  carried  a 
high  degree  of  feeling  into  marriage.  This  last  also 
mentions,  in  his  whimsical  way:  "My  muse  and  my 
spouse  were  equally  proUfick"!  Ali  Hazin,  the  Persian, 
connects  the  whole  idea  of  love  with  the  poetic  era  of 
his  youth.  The  Italian  sculptor,  Giovanni  Dupr^,  is 
practically  made  by  his  passion  for  the  rare  and  beau- 
tiful girl  who  became  his  wife,  and  of  whom  he  writes 
in  extravagant  terms.  On  the  other  hand,  what  pathos 
in  that  page  of  Prceterita  which  contains  John  Rus- 
kin's  only  allusion  to  his  life's  unhappiness!  "I 
wonder  mightily,"  he  writes  wistfully,  "what  sort  of 
a  creature  I  might  have  turned  out,  if  at  this  time 
love  had  been  with  me  instead  of  against  me.  .  .  . 
Such  things  are  not  allowed  in  this  world.  The  men 
capable  of  the  highest  imaginative  passion  are  always 
tossed  on  fiery  waves  by  it."  And  there  is  a  man  like 
Herbert  Spencer  lamenting  the  absence  of  emotion  from 
his  experience,  and  the  consequently  maimed  appear- 
ance of  life  to  his  own  eyes.  Summing  up,  he  writes: 
"At  any  rate  one  significant  fact  has  been  made  clear, 
that  in  the  genesis  of  a  system  of  thought  the  emo- 


SIO  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tional  nature  is  a  large  factor;  perhaps  as  large  a  factor 
as  the  intellectual  nature."  Significant  words  these, 
which  dignify  and  justify  any  comparative  study  one 
may  make  of  these  emotions.  Also  do  they  serve  to 
suggest  that  to  the  scientific  observation  the  presence  of 
idealized  feeling  has  its  especial  place  and  value  for  the 
mind  of  high  quality,  and  for  the  nature  of  high  attain- 
ments. The  various  experiences  placed  here  have  an 
especial  use  in  showing  that  the  ideal  of  marriage  as 
friendship  touched  with  passion  is  an  ideal  for  which, 
and  through  which,  much  has  been  and  will  be  accom- 
plished. 

At  first  glance  no  situation  would  appear  to  have 
altered  more  during  the  last  four  hundred  years  than 
that  of  women;  no  question  shifted  more  in  its  broader 
aspect  than  the  sex-question.  Most  of  us  believe  that 
woman's  attitude  has  not  only  changed  toward  man, 
but  toward  the  world,  and  toward  herself.  Yet  there 
have  been  others  to  point  out  —  not  without  cynicism 
—  some  of  our  returns  upon  the  past;  to  suggest  that 
our  boasted  advance  is  not  perhaps  so  wide  as  we  be- 
lieve, and  that  in  actual  accomplishment  the  area 
covered  has  been  comparatively  small.  That  in  the 
position  of  women  there  have  been  vital  changes,  no 
one  can  for  an  instant  deny.  An  entire  class  has  been 
created;  the  woman  worker  has  appeared  on  the  world's 
stage,  bringing  with  her  new  liberties,  laws,  responsi- 
bilities, and  justifications.    As  a  self-supporting  agent, 


THE  RELATIONS   OF  THE  SEXES         311 

as  an  intellectual  force,  woman  practically  enters  upon 
existence  with  the  nineteenth  century;  but  as  sweet- 
heart, as  daughter,  as  wife,  as  mother,  as  friend,  she  did 
exist  before.  The  respect  and  equality  which  we  have 
granted  and  are  granting  to  the  working  woman  has 
already  served  to  modify  the  structure  of  society  —  for 
good  or  evil,  according  as  the  theorist  sees  it  —  and  to 
alter  the  existing  face  of  things.  But  when  the  European 
woman  of  the  past  is  shown  us  in  pictures  painted  by  her 
own  hand,  she  is  depicted  in  surroundings  much  less  like 
the  Oriental  harem  than  later  reformers  would  wish  us  to 
believe.  Grant  her  a  position  sufficiently  high  in  the 
social  scale,  and  she  enjoyed  no  mean  degree  of  liberty, 
independence,  and  power.  Full  legal  rights  were  not 
hers,  but  had  they  been,  it  is  surely  true  that  legal 
rights  would  have  modified  very  little  the  course  of  a 
Catherine  of  Russia,  a  Teresa  of  Avila. 

Change  in  the  position  of  woman,  when  it  is  examined 
in  the  light  of  recorded  personal  experience,  is  seen  to 
be  really  an  approach  by  the  women  of  the  lower  work- 
ing class  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  same  degree  of  liberty 
as  their  sisters  of  the  leisure  class.  It  was  upon  these 
working  women  that  the  chains  were  knotted,  that  the 
burdens  of  life  were  laid,  and  made  heavier  by  the  fact 
of  sex.  Of  the  sunburned  creatures,  male  and  female, 
bending  in  the  fields,  whom  La  Bruyere  saw,  it  was  the 
female  who  suffered  the  more  intolerable  miseries,  it  was 
the  female  who  rose  to  partake  of  a  more  hysterical 


312  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

vengeance.  The  role  of  woman  in  the  French  Revolu- 
tion is  a  leading,  not  a  supplementary,  role;  and  this 
fact  is,  in  itself,  explanatory,  for  the  personal  attitudes 
and  opinions  of  such  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and 
eighteenth-century  women  included  in  the  catalogue 
of  memoiristes,  are  enough  to  show  why  the  woman's 
movement  was  delayed  so  long.  Mill's  Essay  on  the 
Subjection  of  Women  is  written  in  the  interest  of  a  class 
which  sprang  into  being  with  the  nineteenth  century; 
and  which  aimed,  at  first,  more  to  equalize  existing 
conditions  than  to  create  new  ones. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  autobiographers  in  general 
have  failed  to  record  the  symptoms  in  themselves 
accompanying  the  development  of  the  sexual  instinct. 
Rousseau  does  so  fully  and  valuably;  Brandes  gives  a 
note  to  the  effect  that  the  revelations  of  coarse  boy 
companions  brought  him  bitter  misery;  and  one  or 
two  others  touch  upon  this  topic;  but  the  loss  to  edu- 
cators from  a  general  neglect  of  it  through  authentic 
experiences  remains  great. 

Examination  of  the  relations  of  the  sexes  by  means 
of  these  individual  ideas  and  feelings,  shows  at  least  that 
it  is  their  exterior,  rather  than  their  interior  relations, 
which  have  been  altered  by  civilization.  The  great  inti- 
mate and  immutable  feelings  display  the  same  strength, 
the  same  variety.  Such  jottings  as  are  made  in  these 
pages  touch,  after  all,  only  familiar  scenes  and  pictures, 
though  in  unfamiliar  speech  and  dress.  The  mutual 


THE   RELATIONS   OF   THE   SEXES  313 

affection  of  Augustin  and  Monica,  of  De  Thou  for  his 
parents,  of  Margaret  of  Newcastle  for  her  husband,  of 
Cardan  for  his  unworthy  son  —  these  are  the  things  we 
see  and  understand.  Much,  much  has  changed.  Youths 
of  fifteen  do  not  to-day  decide  to  marry  as  ''a  due 
remedy  for  lasciviousness " ;  few  mothers  nowadays 
receive  the  confidences  made  by  her  son  to  Madame  de 
Sevigne,  or  would  retail  them  afterwards  in  letters  to  a 
young  daughter.  The  attitude  of  servant  and  master, 
of  employer  and  employee,  has  turned  its  front  as  com- 
pletely as  the  attitude  of  the  cultivated  person  toward 
nature.  It  is  not  customary  now  for  us  to  apply  to 
Alpine  scenery  the  epithet  "nasty,'^  as  did  Sophia  of 
Hanover;  and  the  terms  of  affectionate  contempt  with 
which  writers  speak  of  their  menials  and  servitors  have 
vanished  with  the  class  itself.  But  these  are  outside 
things;  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  we  must  recognize 
that  with  the  addition,  perhaps,  of  an  increased  mutual 
respect,  men  and  women  still  stand  toward  each  other 
much  as  they  did  in  the  younger  years  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

HUMOR 

The  seriousness  of  the  autobiographical  mood  tells 
against  deliberate  humor,  though  it  frequently  throws 
an  unconscious  humor  sharply  into  relief.  He  who  is 
gifted  with  what  Gozzi  calls  the  **democritic"  spirit  is 
not  apt  to  be  moved  to  self-study,  since  the  prerequisite 
to  self-study  is  the  habit  of  taking  oneself  seriously. 
Now  a  self-student  may  take  himself  seriously  in  two 
ways:  either  with  or  without  an  appreciation  of  the 
seriousness  of  anybody  else.  The  elder  records  rarely 
take  their  surroundings  into  account;  humor  in  them, 
therefore,  is  restricted  to  coarse,  practical  joking,  to 
repartee  of  the  "You  're  another '^  variety,  and  to  anec- 
dotes, such  as  of  a  lady  falling  into  a  fountain  and 
emerging  covered  with  mud.  In  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury begins  that  deeper-dyed  humor,  which  comes  of 
feeling  oneself  to  be  serious  in  alien  or  grotesque  sur- 
roundings, —  of  laughing  partly  at  them  and  partly  at 
oneself;  as  does  Mademoiselle  Delaunay  at  the  patro- 
nesses who  promenaded  her  from  salon  to  salon  like  a 
monkey.  This  is  more  nearly  humor  as  we  know  it 
to-day  —  the  acute  perception  of  a  lack  of  proportion. 
The  joke,  so-called,  is  given  less  space;  and  the  percep- 
tion becomes  positive  or  negative,  so  that  we  laugh 


HUMOR  315 

with  the  writer  or  at  him.  In  such  an  example  as 
Professor  Huxley's  telling  us  that  he  was  named  after 
the  disciple  with  whom  he  felt  the  greatest  sympathy, 
we  smile  because  he  has  seen  the  connection  first. 
When  Ann  Gilbert  at  eighty  does  not  feel  "grown  up/' 
we  smile  at  her  naivete,  and  sigh  at  our  own  perception. 
When  Miss  Frances  Power  Cobbe,  wTiting  of  a  deep  and 
important  crisis  in  her  life,  says:  "I  cut  off  my  hair  and 
faced  the  future!"  we  laugh  because  she  does  not  see 
the  lack  of  proportion  at  all.  Negative  perception  leads 
to  the  description  by  Herbert  Spencer,  in  accurate 
and  scientific  language,  of  his  finding  a  place  to  board 
''where  two  little  girls  became  the  vicarious  objects  of 
my  philoprogenitive  instinct";  and  also  to  the  immortal 
paragraph  in  which  he  warns  the  American  against  the 
evils  of  iced  water.  Again,  we  have  Chateaubriand, 
priding  himself  on  his  English,  so  that  he  translates  for 
us  the  description  on  his  English  passport,  ''Favoris  et 
cheveux  bruns,"  as  "Brown  hair,  and  fits"!  M.  de 
Chateaubriand  becomes  sublime  on  the  subject  of  his 
marriage:  "Madame  de  Chateaubriand  m'admire,  sans 
avoir  jamais  lu  deux  lignes  de  mes  ouvrages!"  he  ex- 
claims, in  a  wonderment  that  goes  to  the  heart. 

But  we  hurry  on  too  fast.  Let  us  linger  awhile  in 
those  days  when,  if  the  smile  were  rare,  the  laughter 
rang  Homeric  and  full;  the  days  when  practical  jokes, 
of  the  type  restricted  nowadays  to  the  hoarded  and 
secluded  energies  of  youth  at  college,  then  diverted  and 


316  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

occupied  the  greybeard  and  philosopher.  That  brave 
woman,  Leonora  Christina  Ulfeldt,  thought  it  inex- 
pressibly amusing  to  dice  for  drinks  (incognito)  with 
the  soldiers  of  the  guard.  When  Hortense  Mancini's 
sister  went  to  sleep  with  her  mouth  open,  and  inad- 
vertently bit  the  intruding  finger  of  a  gouvernante, 
the  entire  court  was  convulsed  by  the  incident.  Hor- 
tense also  devoted  two  pages  to  the  description  of  an 
elaborate  jest  played  by  the  whole  court  on  her  little 
sister  of  six  years  old  —  a  jest  too  shocking  and  too 
coarse  to  repeat.  The  lowest  slum  tenement  to-day 
would  not  combine  so  to  abuse  the  dignity  and  inno- 
cency  of  childhood;  and  it  makes  one  feel  the  truth  of 
what  Dr.  Gummere  writes  of  "the  cruelty  of  primitive 
humor,  the  beatings  and  hammerings,  and  bloody 
heads,  and  broken  bones."  As  an  amusement,  this  sort 
of  thing  is  hard  for  us  to  comprehend;  whereas,  Cellini's 
famous  jest  of  the  Spaniard  Diego  at  the  supper-party, 
is  one  that  would  always  wring  response,  because  it 
has  its  roots  in  the  very  foundation  of  masculine  nature. 
That  a  gentleman,  whose  tender  mood  had  been  some- 
what heightened  by  the  pleasures  of  the  table,  should 
make  advances  to  a  lady  present,  only  to  discover  that 
the  rich  dress  disguised  one  of  his  own  sex,  —  this, 
even  if  encouraged  to  proceed  to  the  point  of  crudity, 
is  still  an  excellent  and  humorous  jest,  and  doubtless 
has  been  an  hundred  times  re-enacted  at  similar  sup- 
per parties.   All  the  jokes  which  practise  on  the  be- 


HUMOR  317 

fuddled  senses  of  a  friend  in  liquor,  from  the  Caliph 
Haroun-al-Raschid  and  Ali-Hassan  to  similar  experi- 
ences of  Christopher  Sly,  the  tinker,  strike  a  certain 
sort  of  person  as  irresistibly  funny.  No  doubt  these  are 
the  people  who  think  it  is  humorous  to  make  their 
cats  and  dogs,  or  even  their  cows  and  chickens,  tipsy, 
and  who  crowd  the  playhouse  to  roar  at  a  drunken 
scene.  And  there  are  others  to  whom  such  a  sense  of 
humor  seems  vestigiary,  like  the  vermiform  appendix. 
Cellini  is  rich  in  examples  of  rough  and  cruel  jesting, 
but  if  we  think  this  accounted  for  by  his  swaggering 
personality,  let  us  turn  to  the  quarrels  described  by 
his  contemporary.  Cardan.  The  lecture-room  squabble 
with  Cardan's  colleague,  Branda  Porro,  and  the  en- 
counter with  another  professor,  Francanzano,  are  told 
in  a  similar  vein.  In  the  latter  story,  Francanzano, 
wishing  to  avoid  meeting  the  mathematician,  left  the 
laboratory  in  such  haste  that  he  became  entangled  in 
his  long  robe  and  fell  to  the  floor,  amid  the  jeers  of  the 
bystanders.  It  is  characteristic  of  Cardan  that  this  is 
the  one  anecdote  he  gives  for  no  other  reason  than  its 
humor,  although  he  often  writes  of  his  own  peculiarities 
with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye.  Neither  his  ironical,  scepti- 
cal mind,  nor  Cellini's  rough  irreverence  and  love  of  the 
ridiculous,  had  apparently  the  slightest  effect  in  modify- 
ing their  intense  superstition.  Evidently,  such  super- 
stition was  general  and  not  individual.  Sometimes  the 
memoiriste  delights  to  tell  us  the  effect  of  the  jest  on 


318  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

himself.  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier  rarely  omits  to 
tell  how  she  laughed  at  herself;  and  even  so  rigid  a 
person  as  the  Due  de  Bouillon  dwells  on  his  capacity 
for  fun,  before  he  began  *'to  think  seriously  of  my 
soul." 

Bussy,  we  remember,  could  laugh  like  Pantagruel, 
and  he  had  also  wit,  humor,  and  quick  perception. 
Bassompierre,  quick  at  repartee  though  he  was,  is 
more  gay  than  humorous;  he  has  none  of  Bussy 's  insight 
and  intelligence,  yet  he  has  a  light  touch.  Of  a  certain 
year,  when  he  had  an  ugly  suit  for  breach  of  promise 
on  his  hands,  other  amorous  entanglements,  and  debts 
to  the  amount  of  700,000  livres,  this  is  how  he  describes 
their  dismissal:  *' Je  fus  delivre  a  meme  en  peu  de  temps 
de  tous  ces  divers  et  facheux  inconv^nients " !  This  is 
not  overstating  the  case,  and  at  least  the  lever  of  the 
writer's  gayety  has  served  to  raise  the  desperate  situa- 
tion. In  the  same  merry  mood  Groldoni  wanders,  hun- 
grily but  cheerily,  over  Italy.  So  Gozzi  quits  his  home, 
and  bids  his  mother  adieu  forever  with  "hilarity." 
Gozzi  is  truly  the  laughing  cynic,  a  more  genuine  De- 
mocritus  jr.  than  Richard  Burton  was.  Of  the  "demo- 
critic"  spirit  also  is  Wilhelmine  of  Bareith;  in  her  atti- 
tude toward  her  parents  and  her  surroundings,  toward 
her  husband's  relatives,  —  a  theme,  by  the  way,  which 
whets  the  meekest  tongue,  —  she  shows  a  brave  humor 
deeply  rooted  in  cynicism.  This  "democritic"  spirit 
goes  hand  in  hand  with  cheerfulness  and  courage;  it 


HUMOR  319 

is  the  serenity  of  the  true  pessimist.  Next  to  the  robust 
and  Rabelaisian  temper,  it  is  the  more  frequent  form 
taken  by  humor  before  1750.  Dauntless  it  is  where 
Colley  Gibber  exclaims:  "Let  them  call  me  any  Fool 
but  an  unchearful  one!"  It  alone  enables  Madame 
Mere  du  Regent  to  bear  with  equanimity  her  difficult 
life;  Gourville,  to  write  serenely  of  the  happiness  of  his 
invalid  days;  and  the  good  Morellet,  to  regard  the  Revo- 
lution in  the  manner  of  a  benign  Swift.  In  the  hands  of 
Madame  de  Staal-Delaunay,  the  Thackerayan  cynicism 
has  also  the  Thackerayan  tenderness.  With  what  a 
humorous  pride  she  describes  her  progress  in  the  train, 
first  of  this  patroness,  then  of  that,  led  about  like  a  mon- 
key; while  the  sketches  of  her  benefactresses  are  done 
with  infinite  vivacity,  yet  without  malice.  Mademoiselle 
Delaunay,  like  Fanny  Burney,  was  the  victim  of  people 
who  thought  they  knew  better  what  was  good  for"  her 
than  she  did  herself  —  people  who  deemed  it  fitting 
that  a  cultivated  woman  of  intellect  should  become 
a  sort  of  upper  waiting  maid  to  the  Duchesse  du  Maine. 
Poor,  shy  Mademoiselle  Delaunay,  clumsy  from  near- 
sightedness and  nervousness,  kept  from  the  books  and 
studies  which  she  loved,  conscious  in  despair  that  her 
gifts  and  talents  were  being  utterly  smothered,  she  is 
drawn  with  touches  of  genius.  Her  situation,  though 
not  unlike  Miss  Burney's,  is  more  poignant,  because 
she  is  more  clear-sighted,  more  sophisticated,  and  more 
alone.    Fanny  is  always  under  the  awe  and  charm  of 


320  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

royalty,  however  uncomfortable  she  may  be;  and  she 
has  brief  respites  with  Mrs.  Dulany,  with  her  father,  and 
her  friends.  Mademoiselle  Delaunay  has  no  respites  and 
no  holidays;  never  is  her  life  her  own,  and  never  for 
one  instant  is  she  so  dazzled  by  her  patron's  rank  as 
to  overestimate  her  character.  One  sees  her  shrug  her 
delicate  shoulders  as  she  writes. 

Fate  was  kinder,  after  all,  to  the  little  Burney.  She 
had  tasted  sweet  success  and  much  affection;  and  she 
was  released  in  time  to  have  many  happy,  tranquil  years 
of  marriage  and  motherhood.  Mademoiselle  Delaunay 
was  really  forced  to  select  a  husband  as  a  means  of 
escape,  and  then,  after  all,  she  was  as  much  prisoner  as 
ever.  Madame  du  Maine  would  not  hear  of  letting  her  go 
to  the  quiet  country  home;  she  was  not  even  permitted 
to  retire  to  the  little  cottage  bequeathed  to  her  by  her 
best  friend.  Then,  almost  for  the  first  time,  she  sheds 
bitter  tears,  for  through  most  of  the  story  she  smiles; 
she  knows  what  life  means  to  the  dependent ;  she  knows 
all  the  tyranny  in  the  whims  of  the  great.  With  her 
brave  humor  she  looks  about  her,  she  smiles,  she  shrugs, 
she  thinks  *'It  might  have  been!"  Her  courage,  her 
philosophy,  her  deep  love  of  study  sustain  her.  It  is  a 
dauntless  record,  this  optimism  of  the  pessimist,  this 
humor  of  the  seeing  eye.  Here  lies  no  illusion;  and 
endurance  is  made  possible  only  by  the  quiet  analysis, 
the  broad,  aloof  point  of  view,  and  the  thorough  under- 
standing which  this  courageous  woman  brought  to  her 


HUMOR  321 

situation.  Of  her  one  girlish  love-affair  she  writes  with 
grace  and  dignity.  She  had  all  a  sensitive  woman's 
love  of  beauty,  and  knew  herself  to  be  plain;  her  one 
vanity,  she  declares,  was  a  wish  to  be  reasonable;  and 
she  takes  her  pen  in  hand  for  us,  smiling,  observant 
of  every  detail  in  her  own  little  comer  of  that  base 
and  splendid  world.  Like  Mrs.  Oliphant,  this  record  of 
disappointment  is  the  most  bracing  and  salutary  read- 
ing in  the  world,  —  salutary  m  the  case  of  Mademoiselle 
Delaunay,  largely  because  it  shows  what  a  true  and 
developed  sense  of  humor  may  accomplish. 

Recalling  the  painful  solemnity  of  the  Georges  —  so 
distinct  that  it  almost  set  the  fashion  of  a  lack  of  humor, 
—  one  regrets  that  their  great  ancestress  bequeathed 
her  son  so  little  of  her  gift  of  laughter.  The  Electress 
Sophia  wrote  her  life  in  lively  French,  to  keep  up  her 
spirits  during  her  husband's  absence.  The  portrait 
she  paints  of  her  young  self  is  full  of  verve:  a  girl  of  high 
spirits,  "interrupted  only  by  violent  fits  of  devotion," 
of  a  clear  insight,  and  not  very  ardent  temperament, 
whose  gayety  carries  her  safely  over  many  pitfalls  and 
vexations.  Her  humorous  observation  of  men  and 
things  amuses  us  still.  When  she  goes  to  see  Marie  Man- 
cini  (whom  her  husband  greatly  admired),  she  draws 
the  sentimental  beauty  with  caustic  touches,  and  dryly 
notes  that  Marie  was  doubtless  *' livelier  with  men  than 
with  v/omen.'*  She  pokes  fun  at  the  eternal  love  theme 
in  Italian  conversation;  at  the  stingy  gifts  made  by 


322  THE    AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Louis  XIV,  "a  box  set  with  poor  pearls";  at  Mon- 
sieur's little  fussy  ways;  at  the  great,  empty  country 
houses  of  the  poorer  nobility  —  at  everything,  herself 
included,  which  strikes  her  keen  sense  of  the  ridiculous. 

Another  humorist  whose  wit  had  a  biting  edge  is  de 
Retz:  his  memoires  are  managed  with  infinite  entrain. 
Any  reader  of  Madame  de  Sevigne's  knows  this  must 
be  so,  remembering  how  she  loved  the  '' coadjuteur." 
Humor,  indeed,  is  almost  the  first  passport  to  Madame 
de  Sevigne's  good  graces:  she  is  never  tart  except  about 
some  person  who  lacks  it.  De  Retz,  of  course,  is  one  of 
the  great  historical  and  political  memoiristes;  he  has 
been  already  cited  among  those  chroniclers  to  whom 
the  historical  novelist  is  most  in  debt.  His  book  was 
called  the  Breviary  of  Revolutionists,  though  to  our 
mind  the  term  ''politician"  comes  nearer  the  mark  — 
the  busy,  active,  cynical  intriguer,  working  and  plot- 
ting amid  the  indescribable  confusions  of  the  Fronde. 
But  for  laughter  de  Retz  never  lacks  matter;  his  own 
conduct  perpetually  amuses  him;  he  has  gay  philos- 
ophy, cynicism  and  a  love  of  jesting,  all  together. 
Of  his  quickness  in  retort  there  are  many  examples. 
None  is  more  characteristic  than  his  reply,  when  in- 
sulted by  La  Rochefoucauld:  **Vous  etes  un  poltron 
(je  mentois  car  il  est  assurement  fort  brave)  et  je  suis 
un  pretre ;  le  duel  nous  est  defendu."  Here  the  parenthe- 
sis and  the  antithesis  are  de  Retz  to  the  life. 

We  have  mentioned  Gourville  in  passing;  his  imper- 


HUMOR  323 

turbable  cheerfulness  deserves  to  be  emphasized.  No 
infirmity,  he  tells  us,  can  cloud  ''ma  gaiete  ordinaire; 
je  m'amuse  avec  mes  domestiques,  je  fais  des  plaisan- 
teries  avec  eux."  His  slight  personality  and  genial  sin- 
cerity became  dignified  in  his  later  life  into  something 
of  a  higher  quality.  Toward  the  end  he  counts  his  days, 
smiling;  hoping  each  spring  he  may  live  to  taste  the 
strawberries,  ''et  quand  ils  sont  passees  j 'aspire  aux 
peches";  and  in  this  mellow  mood  he  sits  tranquilly 
till  his  page  is  closed.  Much  more  fretful  in  tone  is  that 
witty  unrest  before  the  French  Revolution.  Marmon- 
tel  and  Morellet  show  less  capacity  for  easy  laughter. 
Horse-play  has  largely  disappeared,  and  those  jokes 
with  which  Marmontel  tries  "parfois  egayer  mon 
recit,"  strike  us  as  unendurably  dull.  Yet  he  has  the 
humor  of  observation,  abundant  and  keen.  Who  can  for- 
get the  visit  to  Madame  de  Pompadour,  or  the  reading 
of  his  play  before  the  Comedie?  The  practical  joke  has 
its  recrudescence  m  the  Napoleonic  era.  Marbot  plays 
the  jest  of  an  earlier  day;  the  pages  of  Alexandre  Dumas 
ring  with  laughter.  We  laugh  with  the  indiscreet  Mar- 
bot at  the  jest  which  overturns  the  majesty  of  the 
First  Consul.  One  is  inclined  to  think  that  it  is  per- 
haps due  to  this  abundant  flow  of  animal  spirits  that 
Marbot's  Memoires  stand  head  and  shoulders  above 
the  huge  mass  of  Napoleonic  personal  records;  he 
animates,  he  vivifies  the  scene;  he  is  never  dull,  daz- 
zled, or  overawed,  and  the  mantle  of  Monluc  at  mo- 


324  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ments  seems  to  have  fallen  on  his  shoulders.  In  any 
study  of  the  psychology  of  the  Frenchman  of  1800, 
Marbot  must  serve  as  an  important  example. 

There  are  memoiristes,  otherwise  perfectly  sensible, 
who  have  absurd  whims,  or  impossible  theories,  which 
grow  over  and  clog  their  sense  of  humor  like  some 
traveling  weed.  Of  such  is  Baron  Holberg's  description 
of  his  symptoms  of  ill-health:  '^When  my  disease  at- 
tacked the  region  of  the  heart  I  used  to  be  seized  with 
a  mania  for  reform.'^  Alfieri  shared  this  notion  of  the 
reaction  of  physical  on  mental  states,  and  carried  it  to 
the  point  of  times  and  seasons.  These  ideas  seem  amus- 
ing to  us  now,  just  as  we  think  Mademoiselle  Victorine 
de  Chastenay  funny  in  her  sense  of  the  proprieties.  She 
met  young  Napoleon  Bonaparte  somewhere  and  they 
discussed  Ossian  together,  but  when  he  rode  over  to  call, 
with  a  volume  of  the  poems,  she  would  not  see  him. 
She  sighs  as  she  tells  it,  and  evidently  thinks  that  she 
narrowly  escaped  being  Empress  of  the  French. 

The  absence  of  any  sense  of  humor  is  characteristic 
of  those  persons  with  a  grievance,  whose  confessions 
contain  such  bitter  revilings  of  the  world.  Mademoi- 
selle Sophie  Clairon,  the  famous  tragedienne,  is  one  of 
these.  Sir  Egerton  Brydges  is  another.  Brydges,  so 
suggestive  in  criticism,  so  keenly  appreciative  and  in- 
tellectual, is  yet  worked  upon  to  such  a  degree  by  his 
morbid  sensitiveness  and  lack  of  humor  as  utterly  to 
lose  all  perspective,  all  natural  proportion.    In  Hector 


HUMOR  325 

Berlioz,  the  musical  composer,  existed  the  most  start- 
ling alternations  between  a  total  lack  of  a  sense  of  humor 
and  a  keen  ability  in  exterior  humorous  description. 
It  is  hard  to  reconcile  the  defiant  solemnity  with  which 
he  mismanages  some  of  his  private  affairs,  with  the 
delicately  humorous  perceptions  of  such  a  scene  as  his 
dialogue  at  the  opera  between  "un  jeune  homme 
^pluchant  un  orange,  et  Tinconnu,  son  voisin,  en  proie 
k  la  plus  vive  Amotion." 

''Mon  Dieu,  Monsieur;  calmez-vous! '* 

"Non,  c'est  irresistible,  c'est  accablant,  cel^  tue!'* 

"  Allons,  du  courage!  Vous  offrirai-je  un  morceau  de 
cet  orange?  '^ 

*'Ah,  c'est  sublime!" 

"Elle  est  de  Malte!" 

"Ah,  Monsieur,  quelle  musique!" 

"Oui,  c'est  tres  joli." 

Arnold  ascribes  Shelley's  famous  letter  to  Harriet 
as  due  to  a  monstrous  lack  of  sense  of  humor  ;  and 
there  are  certain  quarrels  of  Brydges,  certain  excuses  of 
Berlioz,  which  approach  it  in  monstrosity.  Reading 
of  them,  one  is  inclined  to  feel  that  humor  acts  like  a 
protective  tissue  to  certain  qualities  of  the  human 
sensitiveness,  so  that  its  absence  lays  bare  those  deli- 
cate fibres  which  are  not  intended  to  stand  the  outer 
air.  Conversely,  the  protective  tissue  may  be  too  thick, 
and  so  certain  dullnesses  will  follow.  Your  practical 
joker  is  apt  to  lack  dignity  of  mind.    A  good  example 


326  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

is  shown  in  Solomon  Maimon,  the  Rabbi,  who  writes 
of  his  own  attempt  at  suicide  as  ^*  serio-comic,"  and 
of  other  serious  experiences  of  Ufe,  his  desertion  of  wife 
and  family,  for  instance,  in  the  same  vein.  The  coldly 
cynical  humor  of  Talleyrand  added  to  his  deficiency  in 
personal  ethics,  and  caused  him  to  be  more  universally 
hated  than  many  a  solemn  and  fatuous  prig. 

Already  the  reader  must  have  noticed  the  prepon- 
derance of  Latin  examples  —  the  ItaUan,  the  French. 
Comparatively  early,  it  is  seen,  a  strong  perception  of 
the  absurd  existed  among  them.  The  solemn  person 
with  no  sense  of  humor  or  the  humorous,  is  to  be  found 
most  often  on  Anglo-Saxon  soil.  Chateaubriand,  al- 
ready cited,  is  the  most  striking  French  example  of 
this,  and  he  is  modern.  Could  one  take  Lamartine's 
Les  Confidences  as  worth  anything  at  all  they  might  be 
placed  beside  Chateaubriand.  But  Lamartine  simply 
strikes  one  as  ^'pinnacled  high  in  the  intense  inane." 
If  the  early  French  and  Italian  autobiography  is  al- 
most never  too  serious,  the  early  English  one  is  almost 
never  anything  else.  Such  a  remark  as  Professor 
Huxley's  about  his  name  is  practically  unheard-of 
before  the  nineteenth  century.  The  English  self-bio- 
graphy from  about  1600  to  1700  is  fierily  serious; 
from  about  1700  to  1800  fatuously  serious.  The  cases 
in  which  the  lack  of  humor  is  as  marked  as  color 
bhndness,  are  largely  in  the  majority.  Take  Dr. 
Richard  Edgeworth's  account  of  himself.     At  college 


HUMOR  327 

he  had,  it  appears,  "a  want  of  taste  for  the  joys 
of  intoxication";  and  married  early  because  ''he  was 
fond  of  all  the  happiness  which  female  society  can 
bestow/'  His  choice  of  a  wife  was  unfortunate:  "She 
lamented  about  trifles;  and  the  lamenting  of  a  female 
with  whom  we  live  does  not  render  home  delightful," 
he  justly  observes.  All  the  proceedings  of  Dr.  Edge- 
worth  and  his  friend,  Mr.  Thomas  Day,  are  perfectly 
original  in  their  intense  gravity.  One  is  not  surprised, 
though  considerably  amused,  to  hear  that  he  took  his 
boy  of  eight  years  old  to  see  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  in 
order  to  get  that  practical  person's  opinion  of  the 
child.  Imagine  the  fluent  generalizer  helpless  before  a 
literal  British  father!  But,  however  serious.  Dr.  Edge- 
worth  is  simple.  It  is  reserved  for  the  imitator  of  Rich- 
ardson, Hayley,  or  "Perdita"  Robinson,  to  display 
to  us  the  results  of  a  tortuously  solemn  overwriting. 
When  William  Hayley's  mother  rented  a  house,  he  puts 
it  in  this  way:  ''The  excellent  mother,  who  with  the 
greatest  vigilance  and  anxiety  had  conducted  her 
single  orphan  through  all  the  perils  of  infancy  and 
youth,  had  taken  a  house  which  gave  to  the  windows 
of  the  young  poet's  library  a  pleasing  appearance  of 
verdure  and  retirement."  When  he  falls  in  love  he 
terms  the  lady  "the  blooming  object  of  my  future 
wishes  "  ;  and  he  speaks  of  his  crazy  mother-in-law, 
who  gave  them  no  end  of  trouble,  as  "the  deranged 
parent  of  the  hapless,  though  lovely,  Eliza." 


328  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

But  it  is  Perdita,  after  all,  Mary  Robinson,  writing 
seriously  enough,  heaven  knows!  who  carries  this  style 
to  the  extreme  which  renders  it  entirely  humorous. 
Hers  is  an  apology  we  begin  to  read  with  laughter, 
but  end,  falteringly,  close  to  tears;  an  amazing  com- 
bination of  the  naive  and  artificial,  strong  in  its  revela- 
tion of  personality,  however  restricted  in  the  means  of 
expression.  Notwithstanding  Perdita's  self-contempla- 
tion as  a  heroine  of  romance  —  a  self-contemplation 
which  usually  quite  does  away  with  candor  —  yet  the 
reader  obtains  an  ineffaceable  impression  of  sincerity, 
of  that  deeper  sincerity  which  is  conveyed  by  true 
seriousness.  In  all  her  tortuous  affectations  of  style, 
Mary  Robinson  yet  paints  herself  with  the  touch  of  an 
uncompromising  realist;  we  see  her  as  she  lived,  gay, 
pleasure-loving,  romantic,  affectionate. 

''Every  event  of  my  life"  (thus  Perdita  takes  her 
elegant  pen  in  hand)  "has  been  more  or  less  marked 
by  the  progressive  evils  of  a  too  acute  sensibility." 
The  lady  in  charge  of  her  education  "was  mistress  of 
the  French  and  Italian  languages,  was  said  to  be  a  per- 
fect arithmetician  and  astronomer,  and  possessed  the 
art  of  painting  on  silk  to  a  degree  of  exquisite  perfec- 
tion." The  sequence  of  these  accomplishments  shows 
the  writer's  own  estimate  of  their  importance;  no  false 
literary  pretensions  ever  cause  Perdita  to  hide  her 
honest  opinions.  While  still  a  child,  she  marries;  there 
follows  a  rustic  retirement  combined  from  Rousseau, 


HUMOR  329 

Richardson,  and  Mrs.  Radcliffe.  It  gives  the  inexpres- 
sibly delightful  picture  of  the  writer,  clad  ''with 
peculiar  but  simple  elegance  —  in  a  Ught  brown  lustring, 
with  plain  round  cuffs,"  rocking  a  willow  cradle  under 
the  window  hung  with  woodbine,  —  in  sooth,  a  veritable 
Romney.  But,  alas!  this  happiness  is  interrupted  by 
Mr.  Robinson's  ''pecuniary  derangements,"  which 
cause  a  return  to  town,  and  to  the  stage.  There  his 
attentions  stray  towards  a  certain  female  "who  was 
devoted/'  says  Perdita,  severely,  "to  a  life  of  unre- 
strained impropriety."  She  goes  on  to  describe  her 
rival's  dress:  "Sattins,  richly  embroidered,  were  her 
daily  habiliments,"  for  Perdita  loved  dress,  and  at 
every  crisis  in  her  life  her  costume  is  detailed.  Against 
this  too-powerful  charmer  her  own  "nightgown  of  pale- 
blue  lustring  with  a  chip  hat,"  failed  to  win  back  the 
recalcitrant  Robinson,  but  it  called  to  the  wearer  the 
attention  of  the  Prince  of  Wales. 

Perdita's  portrait  shows  a  young  woman,  slight, 
piquante,  and  plaintive.  Her  confession  is  seriously 
intended:  "These  pages  are  the  pages  of  truth  una- 
dorned by  romance,  and  unembellished  by  the  graces 
of  phraseology,"  she  declares;  and  sometimes  the  truth, 
touched  with  that  "too  acute  sensibility,"  produces 
startling  results.  It  takes  away  one's  breath,  for  in- 
stance, when  she  is  going  to  a  ball,  to  read:  "I  was 
at  least  some  hours  in  decorating  my  person  for  this 
new  sphere  of  fascination  .  ,  .  because  my  shape  at 


330  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

this  time  required  some  arrangement,  owing  to  the 
visible  increase  in  my  domestic  solicitudes"!  Yet  this 
mincing  nicety  of  phrase  is  swept  out  in  honest  sorrow 
when  the  baby  dies;  and  it  is  with  a  deep,  intense  devo- 
tion she  speaks  of  the  surviving  daughter,  to  whom  she 
clung  in  all  her  illness  and  poverty. 

This  record  breaks  off  just  at  the  point  of  her  capitu- 
lation to  the  Regent,  one  of  the  most  pathetic  and  sig- 
nificant breaks  in  literature.  She  can  find  no  real 
excuse,  and  the  romantic  strain  gives  her  no  aid.  She 
was  young  and  beautiful  and  an  actress;  her  lover  was 
"George  the  Good,  the  Magnificent,  the  Great";  and 
she  is  not  artificial  enough  to  convince  herself.  For  she 
is  not  artificial,  however  simpering  her  prose.  Her 
mother-feeling  was  warm  and  true;  she  had  delicate  and 
just  perceptions;  she  was  bedazzled  and  in  love;  she  is 
wholly  real.  The  picture  of  her  in  her  youth  and  beauty 
in  her  little  day  of  triumph,  and  her  long  abandonment 
of  illness  and  misery,  work  on  us  as  if  she  had  existed 
in  the  pages  of  Samuel  Richardson  rather  than  in  life. 
The  poignant  reality  of  great  fiction  is  seldom  attained 
by  the  half-existence  of  most  human  beings. 

"And  this,"  our  reader  asks,  with  raised  eyebrows, 
"is  this  humor?"  Perhaps  not;  yet  the  muse,  as  we 
remember,  holds  the  tragic  touching  the  comic  mask. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

SELF-ESTEEM 

The  Memoirs  of  the  late  Mary  Robinson,  written  by 
Herself,  belong  to  the  apologetic  type  of  autobiograph- 
ical writings.  Discussion  of  the  Apology,  so-called, 
would  tend  to  lead  us  far  from  self-delineations  in 
general,  since  in  the  initial  meaning  of  defense  or 
vindication  many  of  the  great  apologies  are  not  even 
autobiographical  in  tone.  In  truth,  the  earlier  among 
them  suffer  for  this  very  reason.  No  one  reading  the 
defense  of  Socrates,  or  that  of  Giordano  Bruno  made 
before  the  Inquisitorial  Tribunal  of  Venice,  but  feels 
they  have  lost  in  convincing  power  by  their  incomplete 
subjectivity.  They  remain  the  defense  of  opinion,  of 
philosophy.  Socrates  confines  himself  to  exposition; 
any  personal  references  are  most  carefully  made  to  his 
actions  only;  he  answers  his  accusers  rather  by  counter- 
opinion  and  a  characteristic  display  of  dialectics,  than 
by  direct  self-explanation,  direct  challenge  to  proof. 
The  majesty  of  his  concluding  prophecy  is  but  the 
accidental  witness  to  his  real  indifference  as  to  his  fate. 
Surely,  had  Socrates  deigned  to  show  the  men  of  Athens 
"he  in  himself  as  he  really  was,"  his  reasons  for  the 
beliefs  they  controverted,  the  evolutionary  process  by 
which  he  had  arrived  at  them,  his  mental  progress  to  a 


332  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

change  of  view,  one  cannot  say  he  would  have  lived, 
but  one  can  say  that  sentence  of  death  would  have  been 
even  more  reluctantly  passed  upon  him. 

The  examination  of  Bruno  is  more  modern,  his  re- 
plies stick  closer  to  the  point;  yet  he,  too,  disdains  all 
appeal  which  might  have  been  made  by  a  clear  self- 
analysis,  a  candid  and  full  self-explanation.  The  two 
cases  hold  this  in  common,  that  both  men  are  wholly 
sure  of  their  own  standpoint.  They  but  answer,  with  a 
legible  contempt,  the  grossly  ignorant  and  narrow 
charges  of  a  majority  whom  they  have  learned  to 
despise.  Certainty,  therefore,  robs  them  of  incentive  to 
self-delineation,  and  so  their  apologies  are  kept  to  the 
limits  of  the  objective.  If  this  be  so,  it  must  be  that 
there  are  two  forms  of  Apologia:  one  written  or  spoken 
entirely  to  convince  outsiders;  the  other  partially,  if  not 
wholly,  to  convince  oneself.  Often,  besides  stating  his 
position  to  a  critical  world,  the  apologist  is  anxious  to 
restate  it  to  his  own  soul.  In  such  an  event  he  begins 
tentatively,  with  a  personal  narrative,  which  serves 
later  to  develop  his  credo,  and  on  which  substructure  he 
may  erect  his  final  beliefs.  Such  apologies  as  those  of 
Newman,  of  Al-Ghazzali,  of  Uriel  d'Acosta,  of  Lorenzino 
de'  Medici,  of  Abelard,  of  Marshal  Marmont,  however 
diverse,  yet  all  show  a  conclusion  firmer,  more  definite, 
and  written  with  more  conviction  than  the  commence- 
ment. Newman's  Apologia  pro  Vita  Sua  was  suc- 
cessful in  its  (unconscious)  primal  object,  aiding  the 


SELF-ESTEEM  333 

writer  to  feel  that  the  criticism  against  him  was  un- 
just and  without  foundation.  Compared  with  his 
brother  Francis  Newman's  Phases  of  Faith,  some  of  its 
peculiarities  will  be  found  hereditary.  In  both  cases, 
creed  ideas  have  entirely  obliterated  family  and 
friendly  affections.  In  the  bald,  high-keyed  story  of 
Lorenzino  de'  Medici,  the  reasons  for  his  committing 
murder,  when  written  down,  seem  cogent  enough:  the 
telling  steadies  him,  the  ending  is  tranquil.  To  the 
peculiar  state  of  mind  revealed  in  Abelard's  celebrated 
letter,  physical  causes,  no  doubt,  contribute;  yet  the 
open  mind  may  read  that  he  is  arguing  himself  into 
conviction;  and  that  all  the  later  calm,  patronizing 
counsel  to  Heloise  on  theological  points  and  the  con- 
duct of  her  convent,  is  the  outcome  of  his  success. 
The  indictment  of  Marshal  Marmont  was  of  a  type 
which,  beyond  all  others,  a  man  of  spirit  finds  hard  to 
bear:  time-serving,  ingratitude,  disloyalty  to  the  master 
who  had  made  him,  were  least  among  its  articles.  M-ar- 
mont's  eight  volumes  are  chiefly  filled  with  historical 
and  political  material  illustrative  of  the  Napoleonic 
epoch;  the  self-analysis  is  placed  where  it  may  favorably 
interpret  certain  events  which  had  apparently  con- 
demned him.  In  the  process  of  writing  his  uneasiness 
gives  way  to  assurance.  Uriel  d'Acosta  lashes  himself 
into  a  fury  by  dwelling  upon  his  sufferings,  and  so 
justifies  to  himself  his  somewhat  rapid  changes  of 
front  in  religious  matters.     Al-Ghazzali's   treatise   is 


334  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

an  apology  only  in  the  doctrinal  sense;  yet  he  quite 
evidently  upholds  and  confirms  his  change  to  siifiism  by 
retracing  the  evolutionary  process  of  his  ideas.  Even  in 
slight,  in  trivial  apologies,  there  is  a  similar  develop- 
ment from  the  desire  of  self-justification.  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  in  his  General  Preface,  is  a  little  uneasy  at  the 
various  deceptions  which  had  been  necessary  to  pre- 
serve the  secret  of  the  "Great  Unknown."  He  makes, 
as  it  were,  a  clean  breast  of  it,  and  at  the  ending  he 
feels  better.  The  memoires  of  Marie  Mancini  and  of 
the  Margravine  of  Anspach,  display,  in  Mrs.  Ward's 
delicate  phrase,  all  the  familiar  emotions  of  femme 
incomprise,  who  must  tell  herself,  again  and  again,  that 
she  is  right,  and  the  world  unjust.  In  the  latter  case 
the  Margravine  succeeds  so  well  that  before  the  end 
she  is  quite  ready  to  assert  that  black  is  white. 

One  can  but  repeat  again  that  the  great  apologies  of 
literature  singularly  fail  to  convince.  To-day  no  jury 
would  condemn  to  death  Socrates  nor  Bruno,  yet  the 
reader,  acting  as  juror,  feels  with  impatience  that 
neither  Socrates  nor  Bruno  made  the  best  of  his  case. 
The  Apologia  of  Newman  never  satisfied  his  critics, 
and  was  not  regarded  with  enthusiasm  by  his  partisans. 
The  truth  that  "qui  s'excuse,  s'accuse"  is  profoundly 
felt  at  bottom  to  underlie  a  man's  attempts  at  self- 
justification,  especially  since  it  must  needs  underlie  his 
manner  of  presenting  them.  The  absence  of  all  apolo- 
getic trend  in  lives  like  Jerome  Cardan's,  or  Herbert 


SELF-ESTEEM  335 

Spencer's,  or  George  Sand's,  or  even  Benvenuto  Cel- 
lini's; their  setting  forth  of  the  facts  impersonally,  has 
added  enormously  to  their  weight  and  dignity  without 
dulling  their  sensitiveness  or  perception.  They  are  as 
quick  and  ready  to  set  down  their  own  wrongdoings  as 
any  apologist;  only  they  have  more  desire  to  paint  a 
truthful  picture  of  an  entire  creature  than  to  soothe 
an  irritated  self-esteem.  **I  am  not  ignorant,"  we  re- 
member Cardan's  asserting,  "that  nature  has  created 
me  irascible  and  libertine;  among  my  chief  sins  are 
pride,  pertinacity  in  contention,  imprudence,  and  a 
desire  for  revenge."  These  are  the  facts,  but  to  pre- 
sent them  does  not  jar  the  writer's  self-esteem;  and  it 
is  such  a  jar  which  produces  the  apologetic  trend  in 
narratives  autobiographically  planned.  Its  very  essence 
thus  foredooms  an  apology  to  fail  in  its  particular  aim, 
however  it  may  succeed  in  other  ways.  The  quantity 
and  quality  of  a  writer's  self-esteem  is  seen  to  be, 
therefore,  a  very  large  factor,  affecting  both  the  char- 
acter of  his  work,  the  character  of  his  success,  and  his 
conception  of  both.  This  factor  largely  determines 
whether  his  attitude  shall  be  apologetic  or  non-apolo- 
getic in  his  self-presentation.  The  vanity  or  modesty 
of  the  self-student,  his  own  estimate  of  his  qualities,  of 
his  failure  or  his  success,  may  be  profitably  compared, 
if  only  for  the  better  understanding  of  his  autobio- 
graphical intention,  and  for  its  execution. 
Charles  Darwin,  in  speaking  of  his  success,  declares 


336  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

it  due  to  his  ''moderate  abilities  —  love  of  science  — 
unbounded  patience  in  long  reflecting  over  any  sub- 
ject —  industry  in  observing  and  collecting  facts,  a 
fair  share  of  invention  as  well  as  of  common-sense.'* 
Trollope,  in  a  similar  summing-up,  lays  ''claim  to 
whatever  merit  should  be  accorded  me  for  persevering 
diligence  in  my  profession."  He  dwells  on  the  necessity 
for  the  "habit  of  regarding  his  work  as  a  normal  con- 
dition of  his  life."  John  Stuart  Mill  asserts  that  he 
possessed  but  one  natural  gift,  a  "disposition  to 
thoroughness,"  while  he  attributes  a  large  share  of  his 
ideas  to  his  wife.  Lack  of  self-confidence  and  the  ac- 
cent of  self-depreciation  are  frequently  to  be  found  in 
minds  of  a  higher  order.  Sometimes  the  true  humility 
of  religious  feeling  produces  it;  sometimes  the  love 
and  search  for  truth.  Augustin  tells  us  that  he  was 
never  a  learned  man;  his  deep  humility  on  the  subject 
of  his  sinful  nature  is  well  known.  Patrick  calls  his 
own  writings  "drivel,"  and  terms  himself  "the  rudest 
and  least  of  all  the  faithful,  and  most  contemptible 
to  very  many.  ...  I  blush  to-day,  and  greatly  fear 
to  expose  my  unskilfulness."  Cardinal  Bellarmin  is 
aware  of  his  talent  for  the  pulpit,  but  appears  to  be 
very  humble-minded  about  his  other  great  talents. 
David  Hume  allows  himself  only  a  keen  ardor  in 
study;  and  there  is  surely  a  deep  modesty  in  the  pas- 
sage where  George  Sand  speaks  of  "le  manque  d'eclat 
de  ma  vie  et  de  mon  esprit,"  and  characteristic  pen- 


SELF-ESTEEM  SS7 

etration  is  shown  in  her  self -estimate.  ''Je  suis  tr^s 
gaie,"  she  concludes,  cheerfully;  "je  dois  avoir  des  gros 
defauts;  je  suis  comme  tout  le  monde,  je  ne  les  vols  pas." 
Franklin  might  have  echoed  the  words,  for  they  are 
equally  true  of  his  well-balanced  qualities.  He  dwells 
with  most  approbation  on  his  own  thrift  and  system 
and,  by  way  of  summing-up,  says:  "I  was  free  from 
any  wilful  gross  immorality  and  injustice  ...  I  had 
therefore  a  tolerable  character"; — a  very  accurate 
and  moderate  estimate.  The  impersonal  account  of 
Gibbon's  ''naked  and  unblushing  Truth"  lends  an  air 
of  candor  to  his  brief  and  modest  review  of  his  own 
abilities. 

Although  the  serious  sententiousness  of  Herbert 
Spencer's  style  produces  the  impression  of  great  self- 
esteem,  yet  we  find  him  making  certain  admissions 
which  are  the  result  of  real  and  deep  modesty.  One  is 
of  carelessness,  as  when  he  says  his  knowledge  of  French 
was  gained  "by  scrambling  through  half-a-dozen  easy 
novels,  content  to  gather  the  drift,  and  skipping  where 
I  failed  to  understand."  This  sort  of  admission  is  ex- 
tremely rare.  Rousseau  may  analyze  his  sensuality; 
Cardan  may  dUate  on  the  depravity  of  his  fondness 
for  gambling;  but  neither  one  would,  for  an  instant, 
permit  it  to  be  supposed  that  he  shared  the  carelessness 
or  the  inadequacy  of  the  common  world. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  contained  in  the 
fragmentary  autobiography  of  the  great  Arabian  phil- 


338  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

osopher  and  physician,  Avicenna,  is  his  admission  that 
he  failed  for  so  long  to  understand  Aristotle's  Meta- 
physics. Though  he  had  read  it  forty  times  and  knew  it 
by  heart,  he  had  said,  ''This  bookis  incomprehensible  "; 
until  finally  a  little  treatise  by  El  Farabi,  picked  up  at 
a  street-stall,  made  it  clear  to  him,  much  to  his  delight. 
This  is  Avicenna's  one  admission  of  inadequacy,  for  in 
other  respects  he  allows  himself  no  failures. 

Ernest  Renan,  who  speaks  of  ''mon  incapacity  d'etre 
mechant  ou  seulement  de  le  paraitre,"  gives  a  minute 
and  most  suggestive  account  of  the  curious  character 
which  his  scientific  education  built  upon  his  decidedly 
clerical  temperament.  His  indecision,  his  idealism,  and 
his  tolerance  were  extreme  —  "tous  mes  defauts  de 
pretre."  But,  what  is  more  important  to  us,  he  avows 
that,  although  in  his  writings  he  was  of  absolute  sin- 
cerity, yet  in  conversation  he  failed  of  it.  "Je  dis  k 
chacun  ce  que  je  suppose  devoir  lui  faire  plaisir."  This 
is  just  the  opposite  of  Cardan's  great  defect.  Renan 
thinks  that  he  was  not  modest;  that,  though  he  lived 
austerely,  "Je  vis  bien  la  vanite  de  cette  vertu  comme 
de  toutes  les  autres  ...  la  nature  ne  tient  du  tout  h 
ce  que  I'homme  soit  chaste.  .  .  .  Je  n'en  persistai  pas 
moins,  et  je  m'imposais  les  moeurs  d'un  pasteur  protes- 
tant.''  His  great  error  Renan  believes  to  have  been  his 
coldness  in  friendship.  A  tendency  to  lying  he  frankly 
avows,  but  claims  to  have  eradicated  and  overcome  it. 
These  pages  in  the  Souvenirs  might  be  taken  for  a 


SELF-ESTEEM  S39 

text  to  show  the  clear  light  which  such  balanced  self- 
presentation  may  cast  into  our  darker  corners.  The 
same  fundamental  and  modest  self -understanding  dis- 
tinguishes Marmontel,  who  appears  on  the  surface 
somewhat  self-satisfied.  In  the  account  of  his  study  to 
remedy  defects  of  memory,  there  is  shown  a  full  appre- 
ciation of  his  inadequacies.  Jung  Stilling  describes  his 
many  successful  operations  for  cataract;  and  modestly 
declares  that  he  never  performed  it  without  ''doubt 
and  trembling."  Beranger's  naif  humility  is  a  part  of 
his  most  winning,  sympathetic  personality. 

A  man's  admissions  on  the  subject  of  his  intellectual 
achievement  will  be  found  to  be  the  final  criterion  of 
his  modesty  or  his  vanity.  If  their  sincerity  outweigh 
the  exultation  caused  by  success,  then  his  vanity  is 
not  deep  enough  to  be  injurious,  however  it  may  overlie 
the  surface  of  his  personality.  Such  an  one  is  Goldoni, 
self-admiring  and  self -pleased  like  a  child,  but  never 
losing  hold  of  his  real  aims.  Delight  in  one's  success, 
pleasure  at  the  world's  applause,  together  with  a  recol- 
lection of  the  stress  of  work  to  which  it  is  owing,  some- 
times gives  a  false  impression  of  fatuity.  Macready, 
the  tragedian,  shows  this,  and  his  Italian  compeer, 
Adelaide  Ristori.  Macready  shows,  in  addition,  a  deep 
religious  feeling.  Tommaso  Salvini  writes  that  he  never 
fully  mastered  his  equipment,  and  that  he  committed 
"involuntarily,  lamentable  and  inartistic  outbursts." 

Study  of  these  examples  may  show  that  a  certain 


340  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

standard  is  established  by  which  to  measure  the  depth 
and  extent  of  an  autobiographer's  self-esteem.  When 
we  find  a  man  satisfied  with  his  work  because  of  its 
effect,  sure  he  has  genius  because  he  has  success,  sure 
his  labors  have  been  conscientious  and  thorough  be- 
cause the  public  is  impressed,  then  we  have  intrinsic 
vanity.  Such  is  the  fatuous  vanity  of  Chateaubriand, 
already  mentioned;  of  Richard  Cumberland,  whose 
tiresome  plays  have  not  survived  their  day;  of  the  ec- 
centric Baron  Holberg,  of  Trenck,  of  Marie  Bashkirtsev, 
of  Arminius  Vambery,  and  of  Hans  Andersen.  It  is  not 
to  be  mistaken  for  the  much  less  serious  manifestation 
seen  in  spontaneous  natures  whose  high  spirits  and 
vitality  give  them  frank  delight  in  their  own  powers. 
Baron  Marbot  and  Alexandre  Dumas  exemplified  this 
simple  and  innate  joyousness.  To  such  natures  there 
is  no  line  drawn  between  work  and  play.  It  is  as  dif- 
ferent from  the  hypersensitive  egotism  of  a  Rousseau 
as  light  from  darkness.  Yet  a  true  understanding  of 
Rousseau  at  least  makes  plain  that  this  undue  self- 
consciousness  had  its  root  in  an  excess  of  diffidence  and 
self-distrust.  The  Confessions  form  an  elaborate  sur- 
vey of  the  unhealthy  conditions  produced  by  poverty 
and  talent.  The  humiliation  of  his  boyhood  and  youth, 
the  perpetual  mortification  of  that  keenly  sensitive 
fibre,  the  absence  of  healthy  self-confidence,  of  healthy, 
equal  friendships,  of  free  and  encouraging  surroundings, 
bred  so  violent  a  reaction  that  only  in  self-contempla- 


SELF-ESTEEM  341 

tion,  in  self-admiration,  in  self-created  faith,  could  this 
irritable  nature  be  at  all  calmed  and  soothed.  Such  a 
temperament  is  forced  to  create  a  protective  tissue  for 
its  own  morbid  nerves.  If  one  is  poor,  distressed,  sen- 
sitive to  beauty,  and  overcharged,  perpetually  in  one 
sort  of  servitude  or  another,  one's  self-esteem  must 
be  self-fed.  And  no  detractor  of  Rousseau's  errors  of 
ethics  and  taste  is  more  severe  to  them  than  he  is  him- 
self. With  remorseful  severity  he  speaks  of  that  dis- 
posal of  his  children  to  the  Enfants  Trouves,  which  is 
the  chief  blot  upon  his  life,  because  its  one  deliberately 
bad  action.  The  egotism,  the  vanity  of  Rousseau  is 
extraordinarily  complex,  and  has  never  been  taken  into 
account  in  the  critical  estimates  of  his  nature.  His  work 
is  as  powerful  and  penetrating  in  its  self-analysis  as 
it  is  weak  and  unjust  in  its  estimate  of  others.  Take  his 
account  of  Madame  de  Warens :  it  is  incredible,  absurd, 
contradictory;  evidently  he  has  omitted  some  primal 
spring  of  action.  No  "cold,  chaste"  woman  makes 
paramours  out  of  her  servants  for  intellectual  reasons! 
Either  Jean  Jacques  is  simple  and  easily  imposed  upon, 
or  else  he  is  indulging  his  fancy.  In  place  of  sa^dng: 
"Men  I  know,"  he  should  have  said:  "Myself  I  know, 
but  nothing  of  other  men."  In  every  paragraph 
Rousseau  shows  that  he  has  less  intellectual  than 
imaginative  power,  less  intellectual  than  emotional 
genius.  He  is  incapable  of  verbal  memory,  never  "con- 
ceived" he  says,  but  "felt";  his  capacity  for  study, 


S4«  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and  for  the  logical  development  of  thought,  was  slight. 
But  he  was  able  to  watch  and  to  cast  into  words  the 
play  of  life  upon  his  vibrating,  hypersensitive  nerves, 
as  few  others  have  been  able  to  do;  and  the  value 
of  the  Confessions  deepens  with  the  advance  of 
pyschology. 

Frequently  one  may  notice  in  an  autobiographer  one 
beloved  vanity  standing  out  from  a  mass  of  careful 
sincerities.  Petrarch's  scattered  fragments  of  autobi- 
ography, placed  together  in  order  (in  A.  d'Ancona's 
Raccolta),  show  him  to  have  been  possessed  of  vanities 
unusually  complex.  In  each  breath  where  he  gives 
himself  praise,  he  then  qualifies  that  praise  with  some 
humility.  If  his  ''familiarity  was  desired  by  great  per- 
sons'' and  he  grew  vain  therefrom,  he  hastens  to  assure 
you  that  there  is  no  reason  for  such  vanity.  He  ap- 
pears to  have  had  a  restless  and  evanescent  egoism, 
which  touched  only  in  passing  the  real  emotional  and 
intellectual  force  of  the  man. 

Vidocq  is  proud  of  his  style,  which  he  declares  a 
French  chancellor  read  with  pleasure.  Gourville  dis- 
plays a  conviction  of  his  own  great  political  importance; 
believes  that  he  swayed  the  movements  of  France.  No 
one  but  Gourville,  however,  thinks  so.  A  Uke  vanity  is 
seen  in  De  Blowitz.  To  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier  her 
own  susceptibility  to  kindly  feeling  seemed  very  unusual 
*'parmi  les  grands";  and  when  her  father  died,  and  she 
burst  into  tears,  she  comments:  "J'ai  le  coeur  bon." 


SELF-ESTEEM  343 

Monluc  is  proud  of  his  ferocity;  Gozzi  of  his  devotion 
to  the  purity  of  the  Italian  language;  Madame  Roland 
of  nursing  her  baby,  and  of  her  generally  scientific 
motherhood;  Heinrich  Heine  of  his  irony  and  his  suc- 
cess with  women.  Agrippa  d'Aubigne  greatly  admired 
his  own  faculty  in  debate;  on  one  occasion  his  discus- 
sion with  the  Bishop  of  Evreux  lasted  for  five  hours, 
and  is  thus  described:  '*Le  susdit  prelat  s'efforga  de 
resoudre  les  difficult es  que  je  lui  proposals  par  de  grands 
discours  eblouissans;  ce  que  m'engagea  a  lui  faire  une 
demonstration  en  forme,  dont  les  deux  premieres  pro- 
positions etoient  tirees  en  termes  formels  de  ses  propres 
arguments.  Cette  contrebatterie  mit  mon  antagoniste 
dans  un  tel  embarras  que  les  gouttes  d'eau  tomboient 
de  son  visage  sur  un  Chrisostome  manuscrit  qu'il 
tenoit  a  la  main.'^ 

Cardan  seems  vainer  of  his  rapidity  in  acquiring 
Greek,  and  of  his  dreams,  than  of  all  his  medical  and 
mathematical  discoveries.  Cellini  is  as  vain  of  his  sword- 
play  as  Alfieri  of  his  horsemanship,  or  Bussy  of  his 
facility  in  composing  agreeable  little  verses.  Miss 
Frances  Power  Cobbe  owns  to  a  vanity  in  her  com- 
petent housekeeping,  much  as  Catherine  II  admires 
her  own  really  precocious  self-restraint  and  intellectual 
understanding  of  others  which  alone  preserved  her  life 
during  the  first  years  of  her  marriage.  Richard  Cum- 
berland is  hugely  vain  of  his  notable  acquaintance; 
Psalmanazar  of  his  talent  for  deception;  Sir  Egerton 


S44  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Brydges  of  his  aristocratic  exclusiveness;  William  Henry 
Ireland  of  his  songs  in  the  Shakespearean  manner;  Alex- 
andre Dumas  of  his  ability  as  a  cook.  A  self-educated 
person  like  Lackington,  the  bookseller,  is  naturally 
vainer  of  his  cultivation  and  citations,  than  of  his  in- 
nate qualities  of  energy  and  industry.  An  example  of 
complete  vanity  is  given  in  the  singular  memoirs  of  the 
Margravine  of  Anspach.  This  lady's  conduct  is  frankly 
that  of  a  person  without  dignity  or  morals.  Separated 
from  her  husband,  she  lives  for  years  as  the  Margrave's 
mattresse  en  litre,  and  when  she  finally  marries  him,  is 
amazed  by  the  refusal  of  her  daughters  to  see  her,  and  of 
English  societ}^  to  receive  her.  In  the  passages  of  his 
Apology,  Gibber  struts  to  and  fro,  like  a  bantam  cock; 
yet  there  are  moments  of  modest  candor  which  more 
than  redeem  the  little  man. 

These  instances  are  sufficient  to  demonstrate  the 
capriciousness  of  vanities  in  people  of  weight.  Touches 
of  nature,  too,  they  may  bring  near  to  us  some  of  the 
more  remote  among  our  memoir istes,  and  give  us  that 
friendly  insight  which  is  indispensable  to  our  better 
understanding.  But  for  a  full  aid  and  comprehension 
in  the  matter  of  intellectual  growth  it  is  not  to  these 
slight  sketches  we  turn,  but  to  the  classic  self-studies. 
He  who  wishes  to  see  what  self-education  and  self- 
control  may  accomplish^  opens  Alfieri;  who  wishes  to 
observe  the  constitution  and  working  of  the  mind 
called  scientific,  has  before  him  Herbert  Spencer's  two 


SELF-ESTEEM  345 

volumes.  Of  whatever  lacunce  we  may  justly  accuse 
George  Sand,  yet  the  Histoire  de  ma  Vie  remains  to  us 
the  most  complete,  striking,  and  finished  presentation 
of  the  development  and  progress  of  what  we  term  the 
creative  imagination.  It  is  true  that  the  four  volumes 
contain  so  much  besides,  that  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
disengage  the  vital  matter  from  the  trivial.  At  times, 
also,  the  novelist's  touch  may  be  discerned,  to  the  con^ 
fusion  of  the  facts;  but  this  is  not  where  the  self-study 
is  in  question.  The  data  are  all  given  the  reader,  if 
he  has  but  patience  to  sift  them  and  to  reject  what 
is  purely  rhetorical  and  literary.  What  remains  is  of 
such  value  that  one  is  at  once  reminded  of  M.  Alfred 
Fouillee's  admirable  generalizations  on  the  French 
mind:  ''Nous  raisonnons  plus  que  nous  n'imaginons,  et 
ce  que  nous  imaginons  le  mieux,  ce  n'est  pas  le  monde 
exterieur,  c'est  le  monde  interne  des  sentiments  et  sur- 
tout  des  pensees."  In  depicting  this  internal  world  of 
sentiment  and  thought  George  Sand  is  at  her  very  best, 
and  here  she  bequeaths  matter  to  all  time.  Her  he- 
redity receives  its  full  attention;  she  devotes  an  entire 
volume  to  her  parents.  The  child  of  an  aristocratic 
Napoleonic  soldier,  and  of  his  mistress,  —  a  woman  of 
more  than  doubtful  virtue  and  of  the  lowest  antece- 
dents, —  she  inherited  a  high  degree  of  temperament, 
imagination,  and  vitality.  Educated  by  her  father's 
mother,  the  strongest  efforts  were  made  to  overcome 
her  mother's  strain  in  her,  to  suppress  what  was  lawless, 


346^  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and  to  develop  qualities  of  reason  and  of  self-restraint, 
They  apparently  succeeded;  at  least  until  she  was  a 
grown  woman  she  was  sensible,  quiet,  maitresse  de 
menage,  a  country  chatelaine;  and  she  then  made  a 
marriage  which  she  expressly  states  was  one  both  of 
reason  and  of  affection.  Yet  when,  later,  she  finally  left 
her  husband  —  an  amicable  break  at  first  —  to  seek 
further  education  and  experience  in  Paris,  all  this  veneer 
and  artificial  restraint  rubs  off;  she  becomes  her  mother's 
child,  adventurous,  lawless,  Bohemian,  with  the  ener- 
gies and  insensitivenesses  of  the  peasant  type.  This 
is  one  of  the  strongest  cases  extant  showing  the  power 
of  heredity  over  education.  Imitation  played  no  part 
in  it;  she  is  given  to  the  grandmother  at  three  years 
old;  she  sees  her  mother  little,  and  only  on  short  visits. 
Until  she  is  well  into  her  twenties,  she  sees  and  hears 
littLs  that  is  not  gentle,  refined,  conventional,  austere. 
By  the  rigid  upbringing  of  the  old  school,  her  heady 
temperament  was  schooled  and  controlled.  Yet  the 
relapse  into  the  life  of  another  class,  when  it  came,  was 
complete,  nor  is  there  a  suggestion  that  she  had  sensi- 
bilities to  be  troubled  or  jarred.  All  the  sentences  in 
the  life  which  deal  with  her  mental  and  ethical  quali- 
ties, are  clear  and  comprehensive.  She  was  a  late- 
developing,  dreamy  girl,  fond  of  music  and  of  revery. 
Exceedingly  healthy  and  spirited,  she  yet  was  not 
pretty,  having  only  ''un  instant  de  fraicheur  et  jamais 
de  beaut e."  She  was  always  wholly  feminine,  despite 


SELF-ESTEEM  347 

later  appearances;  high-strung,  excitable,  loving  beauty, 
color,  luxury,  jewels,  and  having  all  the  tender  piety 
of  the  naturally  ardent  young  woman.  Her  talent  from 
the  first  lay  in  observation  of  people  and  things.  Of 
deep  interest  is  her  account  of  her  first  imaginative 
attempts.  These  took  the  form  of  improvisations,  for 
she  wrote  late.  She  invented  a  childish  religion,  a  god 
named  by  her  Corambe,  and  even  a  ritual;  she  built  an 
altar,  before  which  she  worshiped.  Corambe  was  a 
gentle  and  beneficent  woodland  deity,  the  imaginative 
offspring  of  classic  myths;  and  this  part  of  the  child's 
growth  links  her  to  the  larger  growth  of  equally  child- 
ish, savage  peoples.  But  she  was  not  only  a  dreamer, 
she  had  active,  practical  ways;  much  frugal  blood  ran 
in  her  veins;  as  mother,  as  chatelaine,  as  business 
woman,  she  appeared  competent  and  decided.  Through 
all  her  life  she  owned  a  robust  constitution;  her  chil- 
dren were  borne  with  little  pain;  she  hardly  seems  to 
know  the  meaning  of  fatigue.  When  she  once  begins  f o 
write,  the  pen  is  in  her  hand  daily,  hourly,  incessantly. 
On  the  entire  subject  of  her  relations  with  men  after 
her  freedom,  she  is,  as  has  already  been  remarked, 
nebulous,  evasive,  and  literary.  But  to  atone,  there 
are  those  marvelous  passages  clothed  in  living,  limpid 
style,  in  which  her  intellectual  shifts  and  positions  are 
laid  bare  to  us;  her  religious  development,  her  reading, 
her  love  of  nature,  her  gayety,  the  possession  of  her 
imagination  by  a  series  of  free,  graceful,   romantic, 


348  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

high-colored  figures  —  like  some  never-ending  classic 
frieze.  Surely,  it  is  much  to  have  this,  even  if  we  have 
not  all;  much  to  have  a  sketch  of  George  Sand's  head, 
even  if  we  cannot  possess  a  full-length  portrait.  The 
book  is  more  worthy  to  be  called  Truth  and  Poetry  than 
Goethe's;  we  are  tempted  to  cry  out:  ''Would  that 
Goethe  had  given  us  as  much!" 

In  the  light  of  the  Histoire  de  ma  Vie,  which  might 
as  truly  have  been  called  Histoire  de  mon  Imagination, 
w^hat  has  one  to  learn  from  similar  self-expressions  by 
other  learned  women?  There  are  points  of  likeness  in 
Madame  de  Genlis,  who  had  the  same  passion  for 
long,  dreamy,  imaginary  dialogues.  Mademoiselle  de 
Chastenay  reminds  one  forcibly  of  an  English  "blue"; 
she  is  as  seriously  and  intelligently  unimaginative  as 
Harriet  Martineau  or  Miss  Cobbe  herself.  A  fine  exalted 
strain,  on  the  contrary,  runs  through  the  delicate  self- 
portraiture  of  Sonia  Kovalevsky,  whose  mathematical 
ability  never  assisted  her  to  intellectual  serenity.  In- 
tellectual serenity,  however,  distinguishes  such  women 
as  Madame  de  Staal-Delaunay  in  the  midst  of  her  gall- 
ing servitude,  as  Madame  Roland  quietly  facing  death 
as  she  writes  in  her  prison,  as  Catherine  II  beginning 
her  curious  confession  with  a  characteristic  syllogism  to 
prove  that  her  rise  to  power  was  the  plain  result  of  her 
qualities  of  character.  Lack  of  personal  morality  does 
not  seem  to  affect  her  intellectual  morality  —  a  state  of 
things  commoner  by  far  with  men  than  with  women. 


SELF-ESTEEM  349 

Tacitus,  Montesquieu,  Plutarch,  Cicero,  were  her  favor- 
ite reading;  and  in  these  memoirs  it  is  possible  to 
observe  the  formation  of  her  extraordinarily  lucid  and 
positive  mentality.  When  there  is  added  to  this  serious 
study  a  remarkable  prudence,  and  a  steady  observa- 
tion of  the  Hfe  and  characters  about  her,  one  is  hardly 
surprised  at  the  position  maintained  by  such  a  girl  at 
seventeen. 

Intellect,  as  we  see  here,  not  only  guides  but  creates  a 
career.  So  it  does  with  other  women.  No  more  forcible 
example  could  be  cited  of  the  power  of  intellectual 
development  to  make  a  life,  than  the  case  of  Harriet 
Martineau.  A  querulous,  deaf,  ailing  girl,  barred  from 
the  natural  life  of  her  sex  and  age  —  this  she  was  at  the 
outset.  And  yet  these  two  volumes  form  an  inspiring 
study  of  vigor,  usefulness,  and  optimism.  The  book  is 
not  delightful,  but  it  is  strong;  a  noble  task,  nobly, 
executed.  Harriet  Martineau  was  one  of  those  nervous, 
ill-nourished,  and  deaf  children,  who  to-day  would  be  the 
subject  of  special  care.  Instead  of  special  care,  she  re- 
ceived special  neglect;  and  was  obliged  to  struggle  along 
under  the  burdens  of  nervous  dyspepsia  and  increasing 
deafness,  until  such  symptoms  became  chronic.  Her 
life,  she  declares,  was  full  of  fear;  she  longed  to  end  it; 
and  the  sense  of  injury  with  which  a  maturer  knowledge 
caused  her  to  regard  her  parents'  indifference,  lends  the 
account  a  tinge  of  bitterness.  She  knows,  as  we  know, 
that  she  might  have  been  greatly  helped,  if  not  cured. 


350  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Study  did  not  early  appeal  to  her,  because  of  ill-health ; 
but  she  was  always  courageous  and  methodical.  Her 
earliest  passion,  she  believes,  was  a  love  of  money; 
she  was  affectionate  and  extremely  jealous.  The  first 
healthy  influence  in  her  life  is  her  freethought:  "I 
found  myself,  with  the  last  link  of  my  chain  snapped  — 
a  free  rover  on  the  broad,  bright,  breezy  common  of 
the  universe."  Once  rid  of  the  fatalistic  view  of  her 
infirmity  as  a  chastisement  of  God,  she  sets  systemati- 
cally and  sensibly  to  work  to  understand  and  ameliorate 
it  where  possible;  and,  under  "the  deep-felt  sense  of 
progress  and  expansion,'*  becomes  cheerful  and  calm. 
Her  enthusiasm  for  work  is  stimulating;  her  enjoyment 
in  her  translation  of  Comte  is  absolute.  Long,  tranquil, 
successful  years  of  intellectual  occupation  are  described; 
it  hardly  matters  that  her  books  are  so  Httle  read  to-day, 
when  we  know  of  the  character  they  helped  to  build. 
She  received  definite  sentence  of  death  from  her  physi- 
cians. "I  never  passed,"  she  comments,  "a  more  tran- 
quil and  easy  night";  and  in  this  spirit  she  sits  down 
to  a  full  and  conclusive  self-analysis.  No  doubt  such 
tranquillity  helped  to  produce  the  respite  which  fol- 
lowed, for  she  lived  on  for  twenty-one  quiet  and  happy 
years.  Setting  her  affairs  in  order,  she  enjoyed  what 
she  calls  her  ''holiday";  and  she  ends  with  these  words: 
''The  world  as  it  is,  is  growing  somewhat  dim  before 
my  eyes;  but  the  world  as  it  is  to  be  looks  brighter 
every  day."   Her  religious  tone  towards  the  conclusion 


SELF-ESTEEM  351 

of  her  life  has  an  accent  by  which  one  is  reminded 
of  the  comment  made  by  Renan  on  Marcus  Aurelius, 
that  his  religion  was  simply  that  "  qui  r^sulte  du  simple 
fait  d'un  haute  conscience  morale  placee  en  face  de 
Tunivers." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

WORK  AND  AIMS 

When  a  serious  mind,  stirred  by  the  autobiographical 
irapulse  and  guided  by  the  autobiographical  intention, 
turns  to  survey  the  field  of  investigation,  it  will  observe 
three  broad  divisions  of  the  subject.  ''  As  I  stand  above 
to  look  down  upon  myself,"  thus  the  thought  may  run, 
"I  scan  a  country,  various  indeed,  and  full  of  natural 
whims  and  wonders;  but  capable  of  thorough  survey  if 
roughly  blocked  into  three  main  divisions.  My  religious 
development,  my  emotional  development,  and  my  in- 
tellectual development,  if  properly  proportioned  and 
related,  will  give  the  main  facts  about  me  which  it  is 
necessary  to  know.  To  study  these  things  in  order, 
therefore,  I  will  set  myself,  even  if  the  rest  must  go.  For 
when  I  have  made  plain  my  attitude  toward  religion, 
my  emotional  capacity  and  standards,  my  intellectual 
equipment  and  methods,  surely  it  will  not  be  difficult 
to  determine  the  shape  and  color,  as  it  were,  of  my 
personality. '* 

This  plan  of  the  ideal  self-student  covers,  in  truth, 
all  that  is  of  undisputed  value  to  the  reader.  There  re- 
main details  of  merely  curious  interest  —  the  rococo 
of  autobiography.  The  effect  of  the  season  and  the 
weather  upon   Alfieri,  his  curious  attacks  of  avarice 


WORK   AND   AIMS  353 

and  generosity;  Baron  Holberg's  remark  that  his  en- 
thusiasm for  reform  ''invariably  gave  way  to  a  few 
laxative  pills";  Dumas'  appetite;  Baron  Frenilly's 
boyish  visit  to  Voltaire;  Mrs.  Eliza  Fletcher's  dislike 
of  the  sea,  which  she  never  willingly  beheld,  —  trifles 
like  these  do  help  to  make  the  person  seem  real  and 
near.  So  does  all  that  matter  which  is  in  a  memoir  yet 
not  of  it,  those  incidents,  stories,  and  personalities 
which  indirectly  only  concern  the  autobiographer.  And 
who  could  forget  them?  That  extraordinary  Hare 
family,  for  example,  as  much  the  victim  of  omen  and 
superstition  in  1850  as  Cardan  himself  in  1550.  Mrs. 
Hare  presents  her  child  to  a  cousin  with  the  remark: 
''Here  is  the  baby,  and  if  you  should  know  any  one 
who  wants  a  child,  please  remember  that  we  have 
others"!  So  we  remember  George  Sand's  mother; 
Thomas  Day,  as  described  by  Richard  Edge  worth; 
Colonel  Meadows  Taylor's  Kiplingesque  stories  of 
Hindustan;  and  Madame  Blavatsk}^  as  painted  by 
her  devout  disciple,  Annie  Besant.  One  is  tempted  to 
linger  before  this  cabinet  of  curiosities,  but  after  all, 
our  chief  affair  in  this  chapter  is  with  ambition  and 
with  work.  To  examine  some  considerable  minds  and 
methods  seems  in  order,  since  we  have  already  beheld 
the  owners  of  them  upon  other  business.  And  no  other 
business,  it  may  be  suggested  in  passing,  is  quite  so 
important,  since  such  examination  leads  inevitably  in 
the  direction  of  the  large  question  of  genius  in  its  rela- 


854  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tion  to  the  normal  life.  Whether  the  adjective  be  used 
in  the  superb  sense  of  George  Sand's  ringing  sentence: 
"Man's  ideal  life  is  his  normal  life  as  he  shall  one  day 
come  to  know  it,"  or  rather  in  the  customary  sense  of 
the  mean,  becomes  just  here  immaterial,  since  we  aim 
at  comparative  suggestion  and  comment  rather  than 
at  conclusive  definition.  No  intellect,  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind,  can  explain  itself  satisfactorily  in  cita- 
tions for  such  a  book  as  this,  which  can  catch  only  the 
more  salient  aspects  of  its  philosophy,  direction,  and 
modus  operandi. 

And  here  the  field  is  so  very  wide,  the  number  of 
examples  from  which  to  quote  so  large,  the  years 
covered  by  them  so  many,  that  we  are  forced  to  retrace 
our  steps  a  little,  and  go  over  a  part  of  the  same  route 
which  we  traveled  in  Chapters  X  and  XI.  The  intellec- 
tual life  of  the  world  took  its  rise  in  the  East;  no 
comparative  study  of  intellectual  progress  and  attitude 
can  be  convincing  which  does  not  take  account,  first 
of  all,  of  the  Oriental  mind  and  the  Oriental  learning; 
and  clearly  postulate  the  Oriental  standpoint.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  our  scattered  cases  of  Eastern  self- 
study  have  waited  until  this  chapter  was  reached  to 
be  considered  en  bloc.  These  examples  are  few,  and 
scattered  chronologically  as  well  as  geographically. 
For  his  part,  Renan  ^  appears  to  think  it  due  to  the 
fanaticism  of  Islam,  that  the  vast  body  of  Arabic  cul- 
*  E.  Renan,  Preface  to  "Averroes." 


WORK   AND   AIIVIS  355 

ture  and  philosophy  "was  suppressed,  as  it  were,  al- 
most instantly,  without  leaving  a  trace."  Records  of 
important  persons,  therefore,  are  fewer  in  number  and 
less  influential  than  those  in  occidental  literatures. 
Carra  de  Vaux,  in  mentioning  Avicenna's  autobiogra- 
phical fragment,  observes  that  it  was  almost  without 
parallel  in  Arabic  literature.  And  it  is  especially  signifi- 
cant that  it  has  not  as  yet  been  wholly  translated. 
Among  the  facts  given  by  Avicenna  are  his  extreme 
precocity,  his  passion  for  study,  and  his  opinion 
(like  Cardan)  that  in  medicine,  experience  counted  for 
more  than  rules.  His  candor  on  the  subject  of  his 
difficulty  in  grasping  Aristotle,  has  already  been  noticed. 
He  shares  in  common  with  the  other  cases  of  Eastern 
self-study,  a  certain  intellectual  outlook,  and  standard. 
Such  cases  must  be  taken  distinctly  as  individual  and 
as  sporadic,  though  conforming  to  the  general  prin- 
ciples governing  autobiography. 

The  Emperor  Timur  especially  declares  that  he  was 
not  a  cultivated  man.  His  conviction  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings  was  deep  and  unshakeable,  but  it  never 
excused,  in  his  opinion,  any  mental  idleness.  His  quick- 
ness in  retort  and  his  excellent  verbal  memory,  are 
considered  by  him  part  of  his  equipment  as  a  sovereign. 
His  love  of  study  was  developed  early,  and  increased 
by  his  high  degree  of  energy  and  self-confidence.  The 
Baher-Nama,  or  journal  of  the  Emperor  Baber,  his 
descendant,  is  more  fragmentary  than  the  Mulfusat- 


856  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Tim'dry.  Baber  gives  his  decrees  and  decisions,  his 
study  and  estimate  of  his  own  resources,  and  those  of 
neighboring  countries.  Poetry  was  his  chief  diversion, 
and  he  quotes  many  of  his  occasional  verses.  Less  ar- 
rogant, less  sure  than  Timur,  he  is  more  tolerant  and 
more  cultured.  His  example  was  in  turn  followed  by  his 
descendant  Jahanghir,  but  the  result  gives  us  nothing. 
It  seems  strange  to  us  to  find  the  Soudanese  his- 
torian Abderrahman-Sadi-el-Timbucti,  dwelling  on  the 
need  for  culture  and  for  poetry.  The  same  love  and 
need  breathes  through  the  pages  of  Ib'n  Khaldoun's 
autobiography.  His  studies  are  the  only  personal  data 
furnished  by  this  learned  man.  In  his  search  for  truth, 
the  philosopher  Al-Ghazzali  shows  a  man  whose  un- 
certainties of  temperament  were  gradually  strengthened 
and  steadied  by  the  operation  of  his  reason.  "The  thirst 
of  knowing  was  filtered  into  me  in  the  flower  of  my 
youth  .  .  .  There  is  no  philosophy  which  I  have  not 
sounded;  the  search  for  truth  is  the  end  which  I  pur- 
sue." His  constructive  power  of  intellect  carries  him 
through  a  period  of  general  doubt  and  despair,  until 
his  reason  gains  complete  control;  and  he  goes  into 
retirement  for  purposes  of  meditation,  tolerant,  well- 
balanced  and  serene.  The  essential  spirit  here  is  of 
soundness  and  vigor,  there  is  no  fretful  hair-splitting, 
no  waste  of  energy.  The  case  of  Ali  Hazin  is  fuller  and 
more  satisfying  still,  contained  in  one  of  the  most  illum- 
inating documents  which  have  come  down  to  us. 


WORK   AND   AIMS  357 

The  Sheikh  Muhammed  Ali  inherited  his  love  of 
letters  from  his  father,  of  whom  he  draws  a  charming 
picture.  In  a  hbrary  of  over  eight  thousand  rolls,  most 
of  them  personally  copied  by  this  learned  father,  Ali 
passed  his  youth.  At  four  years  old  he  had  ''an  extra- 
ordinary inclination  to  study."  When  eight  years  old  he 
records :  "  From  poetry  my  weU-adjusted  mind  received 
great  delight,  and  I  was  much  given  to  compose  verses." 
(These  ages,  we  must  not  forget,  to  the  earlier  maturing 
Oriental,  represent  a  stage  of  development  which  with 
us  would  be  reached,  respectively,  at  eight  and  at  six- 
teen.) Soon  he  turns  in  the  direction  of  philosophy  and 
controversy,  and  plans  a  course  of  study  which  shows 
the  utmost  catholicity  of  mind.  Personally,  Ali  is 
quietly  optimistic.  His  investigations  show  him  ''a 
diversity  of  sublime  truths."  ''Bestowing  abundant 
diligence  on  this  matter,  I  obtained  the  peace  of  mind 
which  my  means  afforded."  It  is  hard  to  communicate 
to  the  reader,  secondhand,  the  inspiring  effect  of  the 
Persian's  attitude,  so  free  from  carping  and  complain- 
ing, so  smiling  towards  his  world.  Physically,  Ah  was 
always  fragile;  and  his  studious  ardor  finally  induced 
a  sort  of  prostration.  "In  this  strange  condition  the 
powers  of  my  mind  fell  dormant;  and  the  page  of  my 
memory  becoming  void  of  every  particle  of  knowledge, 
presented  a  perfect  blank.  In  this  state  I  continued 
a  whole  year,  at  the  end  of  which  period  my  health 
returned."   Treating  this  condition  in  a  manner  we  now 


358  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

believe  most  likely  to  cure  it,  All's  family  placed  him  to 
lie  out-of-doors  and  be  left  absolutely  alone.  On  his 
recovery,  however,  he  becomes  exceedingly  anxious  to 
retire  wholly  from  the  world;  but  his  affection  for  his 
parents  proves  an  obstacle  to  this  plan.  Ali  is  not 
only  poet  and  savant,  he  is  a  naif  human  creature. 
He  never  marries,  because  *'  celibacy  was  more  suitable 
to  my  tranquillity  and  freedom.''  But  he  is  very  much 
in  love  at  one  time,  when  his  poetical  bent  receives 
especial  encouragement;  odes  and  couplets  in  choice 
Persian  arise  from  his  ''  unsettled  heart."  Later  in  life, 
financial  losses  deeply  vex  him.  "My  inclination  is  to 
confer  benefits  and  spread  gifts  among  the  whole  human 
race,"  he  writes;  *'  with  such  a  propensity,  to  live  empty- 
handed  is  the  most  vexatious  and  disagreeable  of 
all  things."  And  he  truly  thinks  it  one  of  the  worst  of 
misfortunes,  "to  have  the  soul  of  the  high-minded,  and 
no  power."  In  his  quiet  way  he  is  somewhat  vain, 
though,  like  Cardan,  he  dislikes  the  nervous  wear  and 
tear  of  visits  and  adulation.  But  he  is  neither  a  cynic 
nor  a  stoic;  rather  an  observer  and  a  philosopher. 
Poetry,  treatises,  critiques,  and  compilations,  came 
steadily  from  his  pen  during  health;  and  this  biography 
is  evidently  intended  as  their  supplement.  He  refuses 
to  make  it  political,  refuses  to  berate  the  turpitude  of 
a  government  which  exiled  him  to  Delhi.  His  last  words 
are:  "With  the  firm  foot  of  patience  and  toleration  I 
have  measured  three  and  fifty  stations  of  the  uneven 


WORK   AND   AIMS  359 

road  of  life.  .  .  .  Now,  weak  and  helpless,  I  sit  listen- 
ing for  the  note  of  departure."  This  seems  in  very 
truth  a  life  mounted,  in  that  unforgettable  phrase, 
upon  the  "edita  doctrina  sapientum  templa  serena.'^ 
As  we  read,  some  wide  prospect  of  brown  and  purple 
hills,  clouds  '^  shepherded  by  the  slow,  unwilling  wind," 
sunlight  falling  upon  the  white  temple  on  a  distant  slope, 
opens  before  us,  and  there  this  old  man  sits  smiling. 

Minor  Arabic  memoiristes  supplement  the  attitudes  of 
these  four.  The  author  of  the  Tarik  'e  Soudan,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  merely  an  historian,  writing  in  the  first 
person,  and  with  the  verbosity  and  amplitude  of  simpler 
times.  With  similar  amplitude  and  verve,  Ousama  gives 
us  a  picture  of  the  Frankish  crusader  as  he  seemed  to  the 
Syrian  Emir  —  a  barbarian  with  neither  intellect,  sen- 
sitiveness, nor  honor.  The  personal  part  of  Ousama' s 
autobiography  is  missing.  The  more  modern  case  of 
Lutfullah  has  reached  us  really  through  the  factitious 
interest  inspired  by  the  writer's  sympathy  with  the 
conquering  English,  a  sympathy  very  unusual  in  a 
Mahometan  and  a  Munshi.  The  volume  has  slight 
importance. 

Between  the  two  great  Arabian  sages  the  comparison, 
as  we  have  seen  already,  has  been  fruitful  in  revealing 
their  prevailing  attitude  toward  the  intellectual  life. 
The  Sheikh,  AU  Hazin,  has  received  little  consideration 
from  the  critics  after  this  manner;  but  Al-GhazzaU,  by 
reason  of  the  weight  of  his  body  of  philosophy,  has  not 


360  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

been  without  his  students  and  commentators  from  early- 
days  to  the  present.  Similarity  of  his  treatise,  Le  Pr^- 
servatif  de  VErreur,^  to  Newman's  Apologia,  has  been 
suggested,  although  the  weight  here  lies  with  the  Ara- 
bian; but  more  suggestive  still,  as  Lewes  ^  points  out, 
is  a  comparison  of  its  method  and  results  with  those 
of  Descartes.  Here  both  pursue  the  search  for  truth, 
the  interrogation  of  dogma,  and  the  construction  of  a 
fresh  and  novel  method  to  reach  these  ends.  In  each 
case  the  impulse  is  intellectual  rather  than  religious, 
in  each  case  attainment  comes  after  the  first  fretful 
energy  is  abated.  Descartes'  Discours  de  la  Methode 
pour  Men  conduire  sa  Raison  is  not  a  complete  auto- 
biography, although  its  study  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment is  planned  in  autobiographical  form.  Descartes, 
at  twenty-three,  a  soldier  in  a  Grerman  camp,  becomes 
convinced  of  the  illusory  and  unsatisfactory  results 
of  the  philosophy  of  the  schools.  He  had,  he  says,  a 
love  of  letters,  a  particular  enjoyment  of  languages  and 
mathematics,  but  felt,  as  he  puts  it,  that  the  "  ancient 
moralists  lead  nowhere." 

His  attitude  was  conventional:  '^I  revered  theology 
and  aspired  to  reach  heaven;  but  I  did  not  presume  to 
subject  revealed  truths  to  the  impotency  of  my  reason." 
This  belief  —  that  the  investigation  of  so-called  in- 
spired truths  demanded  an  especial  help  from  heaven  — 

^  Translation  of  Barbier  de  Meynard. 
'  "  Biographical  History  of  Philosophy." 


WORK   AND   AIMS  361 

turned  Descartes  away  from  philosophy,  and  he  writes: 
''Thus  I  gave  up  letters  and  resolved  to  seek  no  other 
science  than  the  knowledge  of  myself,  or  of  the  great 
book  of  the  world  —  to  make  myself  an  object  of  study, 
and  to  employ  all  the  powers  of  my  mind  in  choosing 
the  paths  I  ought  to  follow/'  His  retirement  into  seclu- 
sion is  followed  by  the  invention  of  a  method  which 
Descartes  thought  would  lead  to  great  truths  by  direct 
chains  of  simple  reasoning;  of  which  he  proceeded  to 
make  immediate  use  in  his  Meditations  on  the  First 
Philosophy.  Descartes'  words  have  an  especial  signifi- 
cance for  us  by  reason  of  his  avowed  belief  in  self- 
study,  his  following  out  of  Cardan's  dictum,  and  also 
his  failure  to  grasp  the  significant  fact  in  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  Italian,  namely,  the  inductive  method. 
Whereas  Cardan,  reviewing  under  a  careful  classifica- 
tion masses  of  physical  and  mental  data,  furnishes  us 
with  all  his  material  for  inductive  conclusions,  Des- 
cartes undertakes  his  self-investigation  in  a  manner 
completely  a  priori.  But  we  have  strayed  for  an  in- 
stant from  the  main  comparison.  The  case  of  Descartes, 
and  the  two  Arabians,  aids  us  in  forming  a  clear  con- 
ception of  the  difference  between  the  Eastern  and  the 
Western  philosophical  attitude.  The  primary  object  of 
Descartes  is  to  invent  a  method  of  reasoning  by  which 
philosophy  of  the  schools  may  be  simplified  and  clarified 
to  meet  the  needs  of  the  logician.  On  the  contrary,  it 
would  seem  that  the  Eastern  mind  is  chiefly  charac- 


362  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

terized  by  its  greater  contentment  with  the  purely 
abstract.  Neither  Ali  Hazin  nor  Al-Ghazzali  expresses 
the  slightest  desire  to  simplify  existing  systems  of 
thought,  or  to  bring  the  ideas  which  he  pursues 
within  the  limits  of  concrete  terms.  To  their  imagina- 
tions, the  first  token  of  a  man's  intellectual  power  is  his 
abiUty  to  remain  without  restlessness  in  the  realm  of 
pure  metaphysics.  The  Western  mind,  on  the  contrary, 
may  be  equally  powerful  in  its  grasp  of  the  abstract; 
but  the  sequence  of  philosophers  and  philosophies  in 
Europe  is  sufi&cient  to  show  that  it  has  never  rested 
wholly  satisfied  in  this  realm.  The  dicta  of  each  new 
philosophy,  the  claim  and  ambition  of  each  new  philoso- 
pher, has  been  first  of  all  to  move  from  abstract  to  con- 
crete, to  clarif}^,  to  simplify,  to  use  what  has  been 
thought.  Dissatisfaction  with  metaphysics  has  led  West- 
ern thought  through  philosophy  to  science.  What  re- 
turns there  may  have  been  made  upon  pure  abstractions, 
have  been  for  the  especial  purpose  of  clearing  the 
ground  for  the  fresh  advance  of  classified  knowledge. 
The  Oriental  thinker  has  felt  no  such  impulse;  he 
remains  at  home  in  the  realm  of  the  purely  abstract. 
He  has  undergone  no  such  development,  he  has  made 
no  such  advance,  as  the  development  and  advance  of 
Western  thought  from  philosophical  doctrines  to  scien- 
tific doctrines.  One  often  hears  the  terms  the  ''Eastern 
wisdom "  the  "  Oriental  philosophy,"  and  it  is  at 
least  interesting,  if  not  useful,  to  pause  for  a  moment 


WORK  AND   AIMS  363 

and  consider  what  main  difference  is  implied  in  these 
adjectives.  Most  of  us  will  be  found  to  mean  just  that 
contrast  which  lies  between  Descartes  and  Hume  on  the 
one  hand,  and  Ali  Hazin  and  Al-Ghazzali  on  the  other : 
namely,  the  mind  dissatisfied,  or  the  mind  satisfied,  to 
move  in  a  sphere  of  pure  metaphysics. 

Men  like  Al-GhazzaU  and  AH  Hazin  possessed  all  the 
advantage  to  their  development  of  an  early,  a  definite, 
and  an  important  aim.  What  an  advantage  this  may 
be,  is  seen  more  clearly  when  it  is  contrasted  with  the 
vain  chase  for  an  object  which  has  retarded,  and  even 
wasted,  so  many  rich  energies. 

The  self-education  of  Alfieri  was  accomplished  only 
at  immense  loss  of  time  and  vitality,  for  the  lack  of  a 
clear  aim.  Gibbon  starts  half-a-dozen  separate  tasks 
before  he  is  gripped  by  the  inspiration  of  the  Decline 
and  Fall.  Goethe's  observation:  ''I  had  a  mind  to  pro- 
duce something  extraordinary,  but  in  what  it  was  to 
consist  w^as  not  clear,''  records  a  very  frequent  prepos- 
session of  youth,  though  not  usually  justified  by  the 
production  of  a  Faust.  Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton,  the 
essayist,  for  years  pursued  the  career  of  a  painter;  and 
the  didactic  writer,  Samuel  Smiles,  thrice  changed 
his  occupation  before  settling  down  to  literature. 
Beranger,  whose  songs  appear  beyond  dispute  the 
outcome  of  a  direct  and  definite  lyrical  impulse,  never 
wrote  a  line  until  after  a  banking  career,  during  which, 
and  at  the  age  of  twenty,  he  had  made  over  forty 


364  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

thousand  dollars.  John  Gait  all  his  life  regrets  his  suc- 
cess as  a  novelist,  his  failure  in  business.  Sonia  Kova- 
levsky  began  by  writing  fiction,  and  indeed  never 
relinquished  her  ambition  to  be  a  novelist,  even  when 
her  success  in  mathematics  became  assured.  To  Rous- 
seau, his  musical  composition  played  a  large  part  in 
his  ambitions  until  he  was  a  middle-aged  man.  Burns 
says:  ''the  great  misfortune  of  my  hfe  was  never  to 
have  an  aim." 

Those  persons  are  too  many  to  quote,  whose  careers, 
whose  talents,  whose  ambitions,  have  been  wholly 
shifted  and  altered  by  some  religious  crisis.  With 
certain  natures  it  would  seem  as  though  their  natural 
forces  lay  awhile  dormant,  awaiting  a  touch  which 
should  turn  them  into  energy.  Thus  a  lack  of  definite 
aim  in  youth  means  little,  provided  we  are  sure  of  the 
storage  of  power. 

Yet  there  is  witness  after  witness  upon  the  other 
side.  Never  was  there  an  instant  in  Haydon's  boyhood 
when  he  did  not  intend  to  be  a  painter;  nor  in  Cellini's, 
a  sculptor;  nor  in  Giovanni  Dupre's,  an  artist.  Goldoni 
entered  at  once  and  firmly  into  full  possession  of  his 
powers;  dramatic  composition  wholly  satisfied  and  occu- 
pied his  mind.  The  later  English  scientific  men — Darwin, 
Huxley,  Bain,  Spencer — appear  to  have  had  clear-cut 
scientific  aims  almost  from  boyhood,  although  such  an 
aim  sometimes  shifted  in  its  particular  form.  Cardan 
and  Stilling  had  similar  experiences  as  struggling  physi- 


WORK   AND   AIMS  365 

cians;  after  their  first  successful  cures  each  one  special- 
ized. The  early  bent  of  some  natures  is  remarkable. 
Cardinal  Bellarmin  preached  at  five  or  six  on  Jesus' 
suffering,  and  delivered  his  first  public  sermon  at  fifteen. 
Al-Ghazzali  at  nineteen,  Avicenna  at  sixteen,  Ali 
Hazin  at  twenty,  Descartes  at  twenty-three,  have  been 
cited  already  as  developed  philosophers.  At  fourteen, 
Solomon  Maimon  was  a  full  rabbi;  Coleridge,  a  meta- 
physician; Sir  Thomas  Bodley,  a  graduate  in  Hebrew, 
Divinity,  and  Greek.  At  twenty-one,  the  last  named 
delivered  a  Greek  lecture.  Both  Catherine  II  of  Russia 
and  her  friend  the  Princess  Daschkaw  plunged  deep 
into  historical  and  philosophical  reading  at  sixteen. 
The  Princess  before  fifteen  had  been  influenced  by  Vol- 
taire, Montesquieu,  and  Helvetius;  and  both  of  these 
women  retained  through  life  an  ardor  for  such  studies. 

Lord  Brougham,  who,  although  he  speaks  modestly 
at  eighty-three  of  his  "enfeebled  intellect  and  failing 
memory,'^  yet  undertakes  a  book  in  three  -volumes 
which  shows  little  trace  of  failure,  must  have  had  an 
unusually  long  span  of  intellectual  powers.  At  sixteen, 
he  mastered  the  Binomial  Theorem  by  induction,  and 
read  works  on  pure  mathematics  with  pleasure. 

Pierre  Abelard,  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  and  P.  D.  Huet 
were  a  trio  of  learned  boys,  while  that  curious  person, 
Arminius  Vamb^ry,  was  at  sixteen  a  wandering  gypsy 
who  could  speak  six  or  seven  languages.  Beside  this 
achievement,  J.  P.  Richter's  familiarity  at  nine  years 


366  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of  age  with  Latin  and  Greek  seems  slight.  And  we  are 
less  surprised  that  a  small  boy  named  Charles  Babbage 
devoured  books  on  algebra  at  night,  and  in  secret. 

Even  if  the  religious  vocation  be  considered  as  a 
thing  apart  from  common  aims  and  ambitions,  it  will 
be  found  to  follow  the  same  lines.  There  are  as  many 
examples  of  its  early  and  definite  manifestation  as 
there  are  of  its  sudden  appearance  after  conversion. 
If  the  reader  will  turn  back  to  the  section  dealing  with 
the  religious  confession,  he  will  find  that  an  early  de- 
veloped piety  is  almost  always  mentioned,  notwith- 
standing later  lapses,  reactions,  and  backslidings,  which 
occur  before  the  final  conversion  is  reached.  The  little 
Quakers  almost  without  an  exception  were  serious  and 
devout  children,  although  many  of  them  later  fell  away. 
It  is  rare  that  we  find  a  religious  enthusiast  or  reformer 
who  does  not  show  symptoms  of  the  force  at  work  in 
him  at  the  earliest  possible  age.  It  is  rarer  still  to  find 
such  a  religious  enthusiast  and  reformer  with  the  usual 
childish  attitude  of  healthy  indifference  toward  the 
subject  of  his  soul's  salvation.  That  element  of  moral 
education  which  is  used  by  most  parents  and  guardians 
in  a  manner  wholly  empirical,  awaiting  the  child's  ma- 
turity until  its  provisions  be  really  understood,  has 
now  and  again  in  the  world's  history  reached,  not  care- 
less ears  and  groping,  ill-developed  instincts,  but  a  fully 
grown  and  highly  sensitive  perception,  mature,  active, 
constructive,   already  a  giant.   Thus  Patrick,  a  boy 


WORK   AND   AIMS  367 

tending  cattle  in  the  fields,  heard  and  answered  the  call 
to  convert  the  heathen.  Thus  Bunyan,  Fox,  Guibert, 
Robert  Blair,  Henry  Alline,  Peter  Cartwright,  all  were 
preoccupied  with  religious  matters  during  their  early 
childhood.  Madame  Guyon,  at  four,  loved  church  and 
convent;  we  know  how  Teresa,  at  seven,  played  at 
martyrdom;  and  how  Salimbene,  a  boy  of  twelve, 
entered  the  Franciscan  order. 

Augustin's  peculiar  tenets  on  original  sin,  and  his 
disproportioned  humility  in  describing  his  unconverted 
self,  leave  us  no  data  on  his  childish  attitude.  But  even 
in  his  sinful  infancy  he  was  occupied  with  his  state,  and, 
when  ill,  asked  for  baptism.  The  child  Ernest  Renan, 
the  child  Edmund  Gosse,  had  acquired  from  their  imme- 
diate surroundings  a  very  pious  hue  of  mind,  which 
later  changed  its  tint.  Giordano  Bruno  graduated  at 
fourteen  in  the  humanities,  logic,  and  dialectics;  at 
fifteen  he  took  the  habit  of  a  Dominican. 

Leaving  the  religious  type,  we  observe  siniilar  de- 
velopments in  John  Flamsteed,  Erasmus,  and  Edgar 
Quinet.  Coleridge  writes:  "At  a  very  premature  age, 
even  before  my  fifteenth  year,  I  had  bewildered  myself 
in  metaphysics  and  in  theological  controversy.  Nothing 
else  pleased  me.  History  and  particular  facts  lost  all 
interest  in  my  mind.  Poetry  itself  —  yea,  novels  and 
romances  —  became  insipid  to  me."  This  is  a  very 
unusual  case,  in  direct  contrast  with  general  experience. 

An  early  manifestation  of  the  trend  of  a  man's  mind 


368  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

is  seen  to  be  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception; 
but  we  must  not  forget  the  exception.  De  Thou, 
Harriet  Martineau,  Heine,  Leigh  Hunt,  Mark  Pattison, 
Tolstoi,  Georg  Brandes,  showed  few  signs  of  any  par- 
ticular predilections,  developing  slowly  in  all  intellectual 
ways.  The  last  did  not  care  for  any  poetr}^  until  after 
twenty,  which  seems  as  old  for  poetry  as  Coleridge  at 
fourteen  seems  young  for  metaphysics.  Without  a 
single  exception,  the  soldier-autobiographers :  Monluc, 
Sully,  Timur,  Marbot,  Marmont,  Lejeune,  Lord  Roberts, 
Lord  Wolseley,  Bassompierre,  Trenck,  Meadows  Taylor, 
showed  an  early  turn  for  military  affairs;  and  the  same 
turn  for  the  drama  may  be  read  in  the  actor  memoir- 
istes,  from  Glairon,  Colley  Gibber,  and  Macready,  to 
Salvini,  Ristori,  Bernhardt,  Mademoiselle  Georges,  and 
Ellen  Terry. 

Surely  it  is  true  that  nothing  is  more  suggestive  than 
to  observe  the  diversity  of  operation  in  that  force  we 
call  talent.  The  comparison  of  its  manner  and  effect, 
as  noticed  in  these  records,  acts  as  a  perpetual  corrective 
to  sympathy,  and  aid  to  perception.  Intellectual  under- 
standing of  the  gifted  human  being  has  been  woefully 
and  proverbially  inadequate,  because  each  one  has  stood 
by  himself  in  the  eyes  of  his  amazed  or  outraged  entour- 
age. Had  it  been  possible  to  compare  the  case  and 
symptoms  of  this  genius,  with  another  similar  genius, 
both  would  have  been  stimulated  and  encouraged.  We 
all   know  what   it   means  to  hear  that  the  healthy 


WORK  AND   AIMS  369 

Mr.  Jones  had  precisely  our  dyspepsia  and  sleeplessness 
last  year;  or,  to  use  another  instance,  that  Mr.  Jones's 
son  —  that  successful  financier — was  violently  poetical, 
like  our  son,  in  his  twentieth  year. 

The  time  is  by  no  means  w^asted,  therefore,  which  is 
spent  in  considering  the  aims,  vague  or  definite,  and  the 
equipment,  method,  manner,  and  attitude  toward  work, 
set  forth  by  the  conscientious  self-presentation.  No 
help  in  the  universal  scheme  can  be  compared  to  that 
which  the  intelligent  and  sensitive  person  obtains  by 
seeing  others  succeed  where  he  fails,  or  fail  where  he 
succeeds;  and  in  this  fact  lies  one  of  the  reasons  for  the 
powerful  influence  of  the  autobiography  over  so  many 
minds.  Unquestionably,  the  self-student  has  realized 
this  influence,  and  it  has  unconsciously  guided  him  in 
classifying  his  material.  When  Cardan  tabulated  the 
condition  of  his  health  and  nerves  in  his  Caput  de 
Valetudine,  he  was  far  from  grasping  the  significance 
and  importance  of  that  action. 

Education,  which  is  to-day  just  beginning  to  take 
account  in  the  schools  of  such  conditions  as  myopia, 
retardation,  and  deafness,  will  no  doubt  in  the  future 
rely  much  on  results  from  study  of  the  relations  of 
physique  and  mind.  This  will  be  found  often  in  self- 
delineation,  in  the  elucidation  of  certain  personal  eccen- 
tricities and  abnormalities. 

Roger  North  observed  in  himself  *' somewhat  of  con- 
fusion and  disorder  of    thought''    and    an    ^'aptness 


S70  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to  oversee  [overlook?]",  which  he  ascribes  to  ''a  cruel 
fit  of  sickness  in  youth."  By  this  he  insists  his  memory 
was  permanently  weakened.  But  he  also,  with  a  quaint 
frankness,  believes  this  cause  accounts  for  the  reason 
why  "I  am  not  altogether  so  salacious  as  others  of  my 
family!"  The  frail  physical  health  of  de  Thou,  the  his- 
torian, and  Flamsteed,  the  astronomer,  appears  to  have 
affected  the  rapidity  of  their  work  rather  than  their 
method  or  capacity;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
Herbert  Spencer,  who  could  work  only  when  alterna- 
ting the  labor  with  hard  physical  exercise.  In  three 
noteworthy  instances,  Alfieri,  Giuseppe  Giusti,  and 
Leigh  Hunt,  horseback  exercise  alone  made  mental 
work  possible.  Alfieri,  when  he  first  began  to  ride,  was 
on  the  borders  of  youthful  melancholia;  Giusti  and 
Hunt  had  been  dyspeptics.  On  the  other  hand  a  man 
like  Bishop  Huet  found  any  exercise  superfluous,  and 
could  remain  in  a  chair  studying  for  days  without  in- 
convenience. We  all  know  Wordsworth's  intense  joy 
in  nature,  a  consciousness  of  which  with  him  preceded, 
accompanied,  and  followed  any  intellectual  effort.  Her- 
bert of  Cherbury  preferred  fencing  and  riding  the  great 
horse  as  recreations ;  which  were  healthier  than  the  chess 
and  dice  that  Cardan  loved. 

Although  Catherine  II  had  a  certain  taste  for  un- 
dignified pleasures,  yet  her  health  was  preserved  by 
her  own  exceptionally  intelligent  regimen,  which  ex- 
tended to  her  constant,  systematic  mental  occupation. 


WORK   AND   AIMS  371 

Rarely  does  a  learned  man  openly  profess  his  pleasure 
in  taverns  and  brothels,  as  did  Solomon  Maimon,  but 
then  his  life  was  one  long  irregularity.  No  doubt  some 
such  collation  as  Galton  wished  to  make  of  facts  con- 
cerning the  bizarreries  of  poets  and  inventors,  would 
bring  to  light  many  suggestive  points  upon  this  topic. 
At  first  sight  variety  seems  to  be  infinite,  so  as  to  pro- 
duce merely  an  effect  of  chaos.  But  this  is  hardly  so 
if  one  looks  closer;  the  most  opposite  intellectual  types 
serve  to  illuminate  one  another,  and  to  reveal  essential 
qualities  in  common.  There  is  Alfieri,  who  in  youth 
confesses  that  he  felt  neither  the  inclination  nor  even 
the  possibility  of  casting  into  verse  his  moods  or  his 
ideas;  yet  who,  in  middle  life,  wrote  his  Alkestis  — 
"con  furore  maniaco  e  lagrime  molte,"  with  a  maniacal 
fury  and  many  tears.  And  there  is  the  converse  in  Dar- 
win's atrophy  of  poetical  taste:  "I  tried  lately  to  read 
Shakespeare  and  found  it  so  intolerably  dull  that  it 
nauseated  me."  The  intention  here  is  obviously  not 
to  contrast  Darwin  with  Alfieri,  a  futile  proceeding, 
but  simply  to  point  out  two  extreme  types.  Alfieri 
accompanies  every  stage  of  his  mental  development 
with  emotion.  What  began  with  excitement  over  horses 
and  amours,  becomes,  in  study,  a  "  bollare  di  mente,'' 
or  a  "delirar  d'intelletto.''  Alfieri  loved  music,  was 
always  stimulated  by  it,  and  composed  his  tragedies 
after  hearing  it.  When  he  undertakes  to  learn  Greek, 
the  task  assumes  the  shape  and  color  of  a  passion.    He 


372  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

is  emotional  from  start  to  finish.  But  Italian  poet  and 
English  scientist  are  alike  in  that  each  drove  his  intel- 
lectual machine  with  a  deliberate  effort  of  the  will.  The 
energy  is  controlled  from  the  first  moment  by  a  hand 
upon  the  throttle. 

There  is  a  type  in  which  the  natural  talent  simply 
flows  on,  quick,  limpid,  easy,  and  unconscious.  Dumas 
sat  down  at  midnight,  with  a  laugh,  to  write  an  act  of 
Henri  III  et  sa  Cour,  and  finished  it  before  daylight. 
Goldoni,  pouring  out  comedy  after  comedy,  sixteen 
in  one  year;  George  Sand,  beginning  a  novel  the  day 
after  she  had  finished  one,  with  no  sense  of  effort; 
these  talents  give  forth  from  an  inexhaustible  well- 
spring.  And  there  are  those  who  can  absorb  in  a 
manner  equally  passionate  and  unremitting,  such  as 
Erasmus.  To  such  as  these  the  life  of  the  body  is 
nothing.  Thomas  Platter,  in  order  to  studj^  Hebrew, 
became  a  ropemaker  at  twopence  a  day;  and  to  still  the 
pangs  of  hunger  chewed  sand  and  drank  salted  water! 
Men  hke  Arminius  Vambery  and  Solomon  Maimon 
taught  themselves  to  read  the  necessary  languages  by 
the  aid  of  a  second-hand  grammar  and  a  self-invented 
method.  J.  A.  de  Thou,  Avicenna,  Agrippa  d'Aubigne, 
Madame  Roland,  Mill,  Bellarmin,  Bishop  Huet,  Her- 
bert of  Cherbury,  Walter  Scott,  fed  their  inteUi- 
gence  with  books,  as  one  would  stoke  a  furnace.  Sir 
Walter,  as  a  youth,  deliberately  read  through  a  town 
library.    Catherine  II,  when   fifteen   years   old,  read 


WORK   AND   AIMS  S73 

every  work  of  philosophy  she  could  lay  hand  upon; 
John  Flamsteed  and  Charles  Babbage  did  the  same  in 
mathematics.  Cardan  was  able  to  repair  the  deficien- 
cies of  his  early  education  so  rapidly  that  he  himself 
thought  it  the  work  of  a  daemon.  Slower,  but  equally 
steady,  ''without  haste,  without  rest,"  are  such  minds 
as  Herbert  Spencer,  Ernest  Renan,  Alexander  Bain,  and 
William  Wordsworth.  In  the  last  named,  the  actual 
acquirement   of   knowledge  was  somewhat  desultory, 

'^  Many  books 
Were  skimmed,  devoured,  or  studiously  perused, 
But  with  no  settled  plan." 

Wordsworth  had  Goethe's  aspiration  toward  some 
great  work,  and  indecision  as  to  its  form.  The  ex- 
cesses of  the  French  Revolution  came  as  a  shock 
to  his  enthusiastic  mind;  and  precipitated  the  same 
crisis  which  we  have  already  observed  in  Mill,  in  Al- 
Ghazzali,  in  Descartes,  and  in  religious  cases  such  as 
Augustin,  namely,  the  doubt  of  reason.  This  is  fre- 
quently caused  by  religious  emotion,  or  connected  with 
it,  although  not  so  necessarily.  The  Prelude  is  un- 
usually clear  and  convincing  upon  this  crisis  in  Words- 
worth's case,  and  may  be  trusted  as  if  it  were  not  poetry 
at  all,  but  rather  scientific  prose.  Wordsworth  calls 
*' precepts,  judgments,  maxims,  creeds,"  to  the  bar  for 
examination;  becomes  ** bewildered  and  distracted," 
and  at  last,  ''wearied  out,  yielding  up  moral  ques- 
tions in  despair,"  begins  to  doubt  the  operations  of 


374  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

reason  herself.  In  Mill  and  in  Al-Ghazzali  physical 
illness  supervenes  at  this  point :  Wordsworth  returns  to 
nature  for  restoration.  ''This  was  the  crisis  of  that 
strong  disease,"  he  says;  and  his  recovery  (not  unlike 
Mill's)  is  due  to  revivifying  emotion. 

ii  Thus  moderated,  thus  composed,  I  found, 
Once  more  in  man  an  object  of  delight, 

and  from  nature 
That  energy  from  which  he  seeks  the  truth; 
From  her  that  happy  stillness  of  the  mind." 

Among  poetical  autobiographies,  The  Prelude  is  by 
far  the  most  important.  This  form  was  more  fashion- 
able in  early  days;  the  Prefatio  of  Prudentius  and  the 
Eucharisticos  of  Paulinus  of  Pella  have  already  been 
mentioned;  the  life  of  Gregory  Nazianzen  and  Com- 
modion's  Carmen  Apologetica  are  further  examples. 
There  is  a  Carmen  de  Vita  Sua  written  by  one  Fervel  in 
1583;  similar  curious  English  poems,  by  Thomas  Sta- 
pleton  (1535-1598),  by  Thomas  Tusser,  and  scattered, 
partially  autobiographical  cases,  will  occur  to  every 
reader.  Professor  Misch  even  includes  Ovid's  Art  of 
Love.  But  The  Prelude  is  the  only  work  of  the  kind 
from  which  any  data  of  real  psychological  value  may  be 
obtained.  In  spite  of  some  fine  passages,  it  is  generally 
regarded  as  one  of  Wordsworth's  failures;  and  justly, 
for  scientific  observation  is  not  best  clothed  in  blank 
verse.  Whereas  one  may  regi'et  that  Wordsworth  did 
not  see  that  the  survey  he  wished  to  make  of  his  own 


WORK   AND   AIMS  375 

powers,  was  a  subject  unfit  for  verse,  yet  there  is  much 
in  The  Prelude  one  would  be  sorry  to  have  lost.  On 
certain  aspects  of  its  writer's  development  it  is  strikingly 
lucid  and  suggestive;  its  clumsy  verse  is  frequently  set 
with  vivid  phrases  of  self -delineation.  Above  all,  it  per- 
mits us  to  link  Wordsworth,  at  crises,  with  other  great 
minds  and  temperaments. 

Personal  mood,  governing  the  lyrical  impulse,  is  no 
doubt  responsible  for  the  poetical  autobiography.  An 
artificial  fashion,  it  was  never  greatly  followed.  Desire 
of  self-affirmation  and  self-expression  has  usually 
chosen  other  forms;  and  this  is  to  our  advantage, 
since  we  are  able  to  obtain  more  clearly  our  glimpses 
into  the  working  of  important  minds. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

GENIUS  AND  CHARACTER 

Though  the  autobiography  be  the  work  of  a  con- 
siderable mind,  it  does  not,  by  any  means,  follow  that 
its  revelations  are  the  revelations  of  genius.  Upon 
this  most  important  subject,  the  data  contained  in 
autobiography  must,  of  necessity,  be  limited  and  im- 
perfect. As  we  have  seen,  the  very  impulse  to  self-study 
is  more  frequent  among  scientific  minds  and  tempera- 
ments than  among  the  poetic  and  artistic,  whose  self- 
affirmations  are  apt  to  take  other  forms.  Since  the 
particular  idiosyncrasies  accompanying  what  we  call 
genius  are  generally  more  often  displayed  by  its  artistic 
and  poetic  exemplars,  it  follows  that  biography  rather 
than  autobiography  has  been  the  chief  storehouse  of 
these  characteristics.  Nor  does  it  take  genius  to  leave 
valuable  autobiographical  material.  No  one  thinks  of 
applying  this  word  to  Harriet  Martineau,  Mrs.  Oliphant, 
Goldoni,  Gozzi,  Madame  de  Staal-Delaunay,  Mademoi- 
selle de  Montpensier;  yet  they  stand  among  great  auto- 
biographers,  whose  self-delineation  is  as  important  in  its 
way  as  that  of  Rousseau,  Alfieri,  Cellini,  Cardan.  Lists 
in  the  appendix  make  it  plain  that,  although  such  self- 
presentations  of  genius  as  these  four,  with  those  of 
Renan,  Mill,  Franklin,  let  us  say,  will  always  be  among 


GENIUS   AND    CHARACTER  377 

the  richer  and  more  striking  records,  yet  a  large  share 
of  important  matter  may  be  obtained  from  the  sober 
autobiographies  of  balanced  and  reasonable  men  and 
women  of  ability.  One  advantage  of  our  preliminary 
survey  of  the  whole  field  of  autobiography,  has  been  to 
dispel  the  impression  that  such  work  must  needs  be  the 
outcome  of  restless  egoism,  or  of  a  neurotic  tempera- 
ment, or  of  an  unbalanced  mind.  From  earliest  times 
until  the  present,  the  body  of  revelation  has  been  pre- 
sented by  persons  who  stand  very  near  if  not  exactly 
on  that  elusive  normal  line ;  persons  differing  not  greatly 
from  ourselves  in  experience,  or  in  ideals,  or  in  cir- 
cumstances, but  in  capacity  and  ability  alone.  Quint- 
essentially  normal  people,  if  one  may  put  it  thus,  — 
just  a  little  more  so  in  every  respect  than  you  and  I; 
painted  by  nature  in  hues  somewhat  brighter;  stored 
by  nature  with  vitality  somewhat  higher;  these,  after 
all,  are  the  persons  with  whom  we  have  been  made 
acquainted.  It  is  their  humor,  and  work,  and  attitudes 
toward  marriage  and  religion,  which  have  filled  the 
preceding  sections  of  this  book.  And  the  result,  it  is 
hoped,  has  been  to  establish  relations  of  greater  friend- 
liness, intimacy,  and  understanding. 

But  just  so  soon  as  it  is  required  to  set  apart  from  two 
hundred  and  sixty  persons  of  ability,  the  particular 
records  whose  authors  have  been  termed  persons  of 
genius,  which  are  to  be  examined  with  a  view  to  their 
bearing  upon  that  perplexed  term,  —  that  instant  the 


378  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

whole  attitude  is  changed.  Curiosity  and  criticism 
replace  sympathy  and  friendliness  —  a  rapprochement 
appears  impossible.  Immediately,  the  reader  seems  to 
epitomize  in  his  proper  person  the  sentiment  of  a  public; 
for,  however  capricious  the  world's  attitude  toward 
genius  may  be,  however  it  fluctuates  from  condemna- 
tion to  adoration,  —  whether  it  poisons  Socrates,  burns 
Bruno,  grovels  before  Goethe,  or  bursts  into  tears  on 
being  introduced  to  Voltaire,  —  yet,  in  truth,  it  never 
hears  the  self-explanations  of  genius  with  patience. 
Those  who  stand  close  to  genius  are  always  anxious  it 
should  do  the  impossible.  Their  ideal  is  that  of  Ruskin's 
father:  the  genius-son  should  ^' write  poetry  as  good  as 
Byron's  —  only  pious;  preach  sermons  as  good  as 
Bossuet's, — only  Protestant  "!  nor  can  the  world  ever 
understand  why  this  should  not  be  so.  The  attitude, 
psychologically  speaking,  is  really  the  attitude  of  an 
audience  at  large:  quick  to  applaud,  to  hiss,  to  admire, 
to  excuse  —  to  take  any  position  rather  than  that  of 
full  understanding  and  equality.  The  sense  of  a  dif- 
ference, of  being  removed  from  the  average,  at  once 
produces  this  attitude.  For  when  we  see  the  Thrales 
around  Dr.  Johnson,  or  the  house-parties  at  Ferney, 
we  see  an  audience  pleased:  and  when  we  see  Byron 
hounded  out  of  England,  Cardan  and  Galileo  suffering 
the  deepest  humiliations,  we  see  an  audience  displeased. 
It  is  no  waste  of  time  to  formulate  these  attitudes, 
since  they  appear  to  be  so  little  understood  by  even 


GENroS  AND   CHARACTER  379 

the  theorists  on  this  subject.  The  whole  intricate  ques- 
tion of  the  psychology  of  genius  is  further  complicated 
by  an  absence  of  definitions.  Up  to  the  present,  among 
the  exponents  of  the  pathological  view,  there  has  been 
stated  no  explanation  of  genius  which  explains,  and 
no  definition  of  genius  which  defines.  The  instances 
made  use  of  by  Professor  Lombroso  and  his  followers  are 
simply  those  of  noted  persons,  of  all  kinds,  qualities  and 
degrees  of  talent.  A  definition  which  includes  Darwin, 
Cavour,  Baudelaire,  and  Lesage  under  the  same  head- 
ing, must  be  as  elastic  as  the  tent  of  the  fairy  Peri- 
Banou.  That  all  noted  or  prominent  persons  (causes 
for  their  prominence  not  analyzed)  are  insane;  and  that, 
in  the  cases  like  Darwin^s,  where  they  appear  to  be  sane 
in  every  respect,  the  insanity  is  merely  concealed,  — 
this  is  the  proposition  of  the  pathological  opinion. 
That  such  theory  is  wholly  a  priori,  since  the  data  to 
support  it  has  not  been  taken  from  original  cases  and 
documents,  but  from  hastily  compiled  and  'often  in- 
accurate lists  (like  Trelat's),  seems  self-evident  and  sus- 
ceptible of  direct  proof.  The  facts  show  what  injustice 
is  done  when  the  theorist  seeks  far-fetched,  rather  than 
simple  and  natural  explanations.  Upon  the  testimony 
of  a  single  and  very  doubtful  witness,  RicheHeu  is  in- 
cluded by  Professor  Lombroso  among  epileptics;  while 
upon  a  passing  reference  to  an  attack  of  giddiness  — 
"for  giddiness,"  says  Professor  Lombroso,  very  seri- 
ously, "is  frequently  the  equivalent  of  epilepsy,"  —  is 


380  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

based  the  statement  of  the  concealed  insanity  of 
Charles  Darwin!  To  any  open-minded  reader  of  Dar- 
win's Autobiography,  such  a  passing  symptom  is  quite 
simply  explained  in  a  man  who  suffered  from  dyspepsia, 
and  led  a  sedentary  life;  and  the  observation  points 
once  more  to  that  vicious  custom  of  isolating  single 
statements  from  the  surrounding  explanatory  text. 
Such  method  has  made  monsters  out  of  Rousseau, 
Cardan,  Renan,  and  even  John  Stuart  Mill;  and  where 
it  prevails,  the  work  done  is  rendered  completely  abor- 
tive. 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  cases  of 
''misinterpreted  observation"  in  the  memoir es  of  the 
past.  It  will  not  be  forgotten  how,  in  the  section  upon 
Religion,  they  were  found  to  militate  against  those 
mystical  philosophers  who  are  so  anxious  for  a  com- 
promise. There  it  was  seen  how  the  phenomena  which 
seemed  to  be  derived  from  a  "something  not  ourselves," 
and  which  the  subjects  believed  to  come  from  a  "some- 
thing not  themselves,"  embody,  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten,  a  simple,  natural,  physical  explanation  coiled  up 
in  each  account  of  the  facts.  If  the  misinterpretation 
is  to  extend  to  the  theorist  and  be  perpetuated  and 
exaggerated  by  him,  then,  indeed,  will  the  work  on  the 
psychology  of  genius  be  retarded  in  its  progress  toward 
the  goal  of  actual  scientific  value.  If  there  is  anything 
to  be  gained  from  the  study  of  individual  psychology, 
it  can  only  be  gained  from  a  complete  and  thorough 


GENIUS   AND   CHARACTER  381 

examination,  at  first  hand,  of  all  the  facts  in  every  case; 
and  to  face  that  task  our  hasty  generalizers  appear 
unwilling. 

No  doubt  the  reasons  for  much  of  this  prevailing 
misinterpretation  lie  in  a  lack  of  comprehension  of  the 
laws  and  principles  underlying  the  self-study,  since  it 
is  from  self-study  so  much  of  the  material  must  be 
gathered.  The  shallow  generalizations  on  introspection 
have  bred  a  lack  of  seriousness  in  the  attitudes  toward 
the  data  of  introspection.  In  Section  IV,  on  Sincerity,  of 
this  essay  these  attitudes  have  been  considered,  and  it 
is  precisely  in  respect  to  genius  and  character  that  they 
most  frequently  offend.  But  if  much  material  on  the 
subject  may  be  taken  from  the  autobiography,  it  cannot 
be  the  single  and  conclusive  means  to  the  study  of 
genius.  Far  more  than  autobiography  must  be  included 
to  make  such  a  study  conclusive.  Therefore,  here  we 
can  do,  perchance,  no  more  than  turn  on  such  light  as 
our  self-students  may  throw  into  the  darker  corners  of 
prevailing  misconceptions.  And  one  of  the  most  fre- 
quent of  these  concerns  the  happiness  and  unhappiness 
of  the  intellectual  life. 

In  his  graceful  book  of  essays  on  The  Intellectual 
Life,  Mr.  Philip  Gilbert  Hamerton  treats  of  the  ennui 
of  the  scholar,  the  mental  weariness,  which  has  served 
the  mediocre  so  often  as  an  excuse  for  mediocrity.  No 
really  important  mind,  he  thinks,  has  been  without  it, 
from  Solomon  to  Schopenhauer;  and  he  cites  as  special 


382  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

examples  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  and  Byron,  who  have 
left  deep  traces  of  such  melancholy  in  letters,  con- 
firmed by  the  testimony  of  their  friends.  On  the  side 
of  healthy  optimism  and  cheeriness,  Mr.  Hamerton 
mentions  the  not  inconsiderable  names  of  Goethe, 
Cuvier,  and  Alexander  Humboldt,  and  passes  at  once 
to  generalization  without  pausing  at  the  obvious  point 
for  comment.  The  poet,  Mr.  Hamerton  might  have 
suggested,  is  by  the  inherent  nature  of  his  inspiration 
subject  to  peculiarly  violent  reactions.  The  ebbing  of 
that  golden  tide  leaves  the  nervous  force  exhausted, 
susceptible  to  depression.  While  Goethe  was  yet  a  lyric 
poet,  his  letters  to  Frau  von  Stein  show  that  even  his 
vitality  was  not  exempt;  but  he  passed  on  to  a  further 
stage  beyond  the  alternations  of  mood,  and  it  is  here 
that  Mr.  Hamerton  makes  use  of  him.  The  point  is 
worth  noting  only  because  it  has  become  part  of  a 
general  opinion,  which  has  even  given  birth  to  certain 
special  theories  respecting  the  intellectual  life  as  the 
abnormal,  unhealthy,  ill-balanced  life.  Observation  of 
this  particular  and  undeniable  tax  on  the  nervous  force 
of  the  talented  or  intellectual  creature,  has  assisted  the 
Lombrosian  theories  of  genius  as  a  neurosis,  as  a  disease. 
The  melancholy  of  the  scholar  has  been  used  as  the 
fundamental  argument  against  the  idealist.  If  a  young 
creature  is  found  to  have  a  touch  of  ambitious  malaise, 
the  modern  custom  puts  him  at  once  through  a  hygienic 
course  of  banking.   That  the  weary  cry  of  Ecclesiastes 


GENIUS   AND   CHARACTER  383 

strikes  the  critical  ear  much  more  as  the  lament  of  an 
exhausted  sensualist  than  as  the  depression  of  the  true 
student,  does  not  affect  the  hasty  modern  position. 
That  wail  has  been  responsible  for  many  erroneous 
ideas  respecting  the  learned  professions. 

On  such  a  question  as  the  happiness  of  any  given 
person,  it  is  surely  more  convincing  to  hear  speak  the 
person  himself.  Testimony  as  to  the  health  and  hap- 
piness of  the  intellectual  life  is  so  overwhelming  in 
its  abundance,  that  the  difficulty  lies  in  the  choice. 
In  other  types  of  energy,  or  in  other  sides  of  the 
same  subject's  activity,  there  may  be  a  frequent  note 
of  satiety,  disillusion,  disappointment.  Politics,  war, 
finances,  society,  sovereignty,  exploring,  police-detec- 
tion —  what  you  will;  or  Lord  Brougham,  Monluc, 
Madame  d'Oberkirch,  Vidocq,  Timur,  or  Catherine  II, — 
to  become  more  concrete,  — each  one  at  moments  shows 
himself  disgusted,  weary  of  the  game.  It  is  just  because 
it  is  a  game,  —  this  practical  life  so  extolled  to-day,  — 
that  men  do  grow  weary  of  it.  But  his  canvas  never 
failed  to  interest  Haydon,  nor  his  furnace  Cellini,  nor 
his  great  folio  Cardan  or  Huet,  nor  the  infinitely  little 
variation  Darwin,  nor  the  infinitely  vast  definition 
Spencer.  Perhaps  the  reader  does  not  think  it  con- 
vincing to  cite  such  men  as  Ali  Hazin  or  the  learned 
Maimon,  because  these  are  singly  devoted  to  letters; 
nothing  else  tempts  them.  Let  him  rather  hear  a  more 
complex  type,  a  man  of  the  world,  to  whom  appealed 


384  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

also  the  busy  life  and  the  exercise  of  power.   Lord  Clar- 
endon especially  remarks  that  the  happy  parts  of  his 
life  were  before  and  after  his  political  career,  while  he 
had  leisure  for  "exercitations"  of  his  own.   Ib'n  Khal- 
doun  echoes  the  very  thought  of  Clarendon,  when  he, 
too,  was  occupying  the  highest  position  a  Sultan  could 
bestow.    Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Ambassador  to  France, 
was  a  distinguished  courtier,  a  renowned  swordsman, 
horseman,  and  dancer.    "I  ever  loved  my  book,"  he 
testifies,  ''and  a  private  life,  more  than  any  busy  pre- 
ferments."  The  legal  life  of  Sir  Symonds  d'Ewes  had 
much  in  common  with  a  business  man's  life  to-day; 
but  his  content  was  not  in  his  successful,  if  harassing, 
worldly  career.    ''So  my  very  study  .  .  .  grew  more 
delightful  and  pleasant  unto  me";  and,  again,  "Having 
followed   my   study  reasonably   closely  ...  I   found 
much  content  by  it."   He  is  lifted  out  of  the  grief  for 
his  children's  death.    "To  mitigate  and  moderate  this 
sorrow,"  he  beautifully  says,  "I  fell  close  to  my  sweet 
and  satisfying  studies."   The  sincerest  note  in  Kenelm 
Digby's  rhapsodical   Private  Memoir  is   his   love   for 
the  life  of  books.   The  gay  and  charming  Baron  de 
Frenilly,  true  type  of  the  polite  Frenchman  of  the 
world,  vouchsafes:  "  Je  travaillais  comme  on  respire,  la 
diversite   de   travail   en   faisait   pour   moi   le   repos." 
Poetry  and  study  formed  the  chief  features  of  his  ex- 
istence.  Carlo  Gozzi,  despite  his  cynical  humor,  became 
serious  in  describing  "those  literary  tastes  to  which  I 


GENIUS   AND   CHARACTER  885 

have  always  clung  .  .  .  and  which,  now  that  my  hairs 
are  gray,  will  be  my  solace  to  the  end  of  life."  Anthony 
Trollope,  miserable  in  a  clerkship;  and  Beranger,  un- 
happy, though  successful,  in  a  bank,  are  converse  pic- 
tures. "I  was  always  in  trouble,  I  hated  my  work,'' 
says  the  former;  and,  later:  ''I  trust  for  my  happiness 
still  chiefly  to  my  work  [writing];  and  lastly  to  my 
books."  As  for  Beranger,  his  ambition  was  to  ''live 
alone  and  to  compose  verses  at  my  leisure."  Further, 
let  us  read  the  particularly  significant  sentences  in 
which  he  speaks  of  the  general  effect  upon  his  character 
of  his  development  as  a  poet.  ''My  spirits  became 
more  serene,"  he  says;  "fits  of  melancholy  disappeared. 
I  saw  men  as  they  are.  My  gayety,  which  had  been 
unequal  and  boisterous,  became  calm  and  sustained." 
These  are  words  we  shall  have  cause  to  remember. 

A  successful  English  merchant,  Samuel  Roberts,  a 
distinguished  English  barrister.  Sir  Samuel  Romilly, 
take  in  study  their  chief  delight.  A  shrewd -manufac- 
turer, like  Charles  Bray,  finds  his  taste  for  books  so 
repaying  that  he  winds  up  his  business  in  order  to 
have  more  time  to  give  them.  These  are  not  shy,  soli- 
tary persons,  but  men  whose  lives  offered  them  the 
choice  of  varied  worldly  occupations,  and  who  yet 
found  more  freedom  and  satisfaction  in  the  secluded 
atmosphere  of  the  library. 

Already  in  these  pages  we  have  heard  testify,  if  only 
by  inference,  some  of  those  personalities  on  whom  the 


386  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

world's  contact  grates  and  jars,  —  the  morbid,  the  im- 
pressionable, the  hypersensitive;  to  whom  intellectual 
occupations  hold  the  key  of  health  and  sanity.  Miss 
Martineau,  Madame  de  Staal-Delaunay,  are  instances. 
Alfieri  terms  his  first  sonnet  "Liberazione  Vera."  He 
carries  out  later  and  repeats  this  idea  of  freedom:  "La 
passione  dello  studio  e  la  necessita  di  essere  o  di  farmi 
libero  per  poter  essere  intrepido  e  veridico  autore." 

The  composition  and  study  of  Persian  verse  was  to 
the  Emperor  Baber  his  great  compensation  for  the  cares 
of  government.  Over  and  over  again,  like  a  theme  in 
music,  the  self-tortured  Egerton  Brydges  repeats  his  one 
happiness:  "My  misfortunes  have  far  exceeded  the 
common  lot  of  humanity  and  my  wrongs  have  ex- 
ceeded my  misfortunes,''  he  exclaims  with  bitterness; 
but  he  has  kept  "a  passionate  and  undebased  love  of 
letters."  On  every  page  of  his  two  volumes,  otherwise 
painful  reading,  this  love,  this  ideal  is  displayed.  Pas- 
sages of  rich  and  striking  beauty  follow  upon  querulous 
complaint,  but  at  the  end  he  is  more  tranquil:  "I  have 
touched  upon  my  latter  days,  and  I  have  passed  through 
a  wilderness  of  thought.  Of  late  I  have  been  almost  an 
entire  recluse;  I  am  calmest  and  happiest  in  solitude." 

The  late  and  slow  development  of  a  diffident  youth 
like  Mark  Pattison  is  saved  from  distortion  and  re- 
grettable errors  by  what  he  calls  his  "restlessness  of 
the  critical  faculty  .  .  .  and  daily  converse  with  the 
poetry  and  literature  of  all  time."  Similar  influences 


GENIUS  AND   CHARACTER  387 

save  Edgar  Quinet  after  a  sentimental  crisis.  Words- 
worth, passing  from  a  love  of  nature  to  a  love  of  books, 
preserves  the  two  to  his  tranquil  and  dignified  old  age. 

But  for  pure  exultation  of  happiness  Pierre  Daniel 
Huet,  Bishop  of  Avranches,  stands  chief  among  savants. 
A  fragile  man  and  frequently  ill,  he  protests :  "  From  this 
unabating  love  of  letters  and  perpetual  occupation  in 
my  studies  ...  I  have  derived  this  benefit — that  I 
have  never  felt  that  satiety  of  life,  that  weariness  with 
all  its  objects,  of  which  other  persons  are  so  often  heard 
to  complain."  Later  he  is  more  specific:  "No  protrac- 
tion of  study  has  ever  given  me  a  sense  of  fatigue  or 
languor.  I  have  always,  after  six  or  seven  hours  without 
intermission  spent  over  my  books,  arisen  from  them 
fresh  and  cheerful,  sometimes  in  high  spirits,  singing." 
Of  what  other  occupation  in  life  could  this  be  said? 
What  kept  the  flame  of  vitality  and  cheerfulness  alight 
in  such  suffering  bodies  as  those  of  Cardan,  Giuseppe 
Giusti,  Heinrich  Heine,  John  Flamsteed?    • 

The  utter  destitute  poverty  of  Thomas  Platter  was 
made  bearable  to  him  because  he  was  learning  Hebrew. 
The  Abbe  Morellet,  both  nervously  injured  and  finan- 
cially ruined  by  the  French  Revolution,  wished  to 
protest  the  one  truth:  "Je  veux  parler  du  secours 
inestimable,  incroyable,  que  donnent  dans  le  malheur 
les  etudes  litteraires,  et  Thabitude  d'appliquer  fortement 
son  esprit  .  .  .  Surtout  en  ecrivant  beaucoup  j'ai 
trompe    mes    malheurs."   Baron    Holberg    asserted: 


S88  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

''There  is  little  misfortune  which  literature  cannot 
in  a  measure  alleviate";  and  Lord  Campbell:  ''My 
reading  has  supplied  me  with  a  never-failing  occu- 
pation, and  lent  a  charm  to  my  existence  in  every  stage 
of  my  progress."  Leigh  Hunt,  during  imprisonment, 
was  quite  happy  because  of  the  uninterrupted  oppor- 
tunity for  study;  and  Gibbon,  in  summing  up  his  for- 
tunate career,  dwells  on  his  happiness:  "The  love  of 
study,  a  passion  which  derives  fresh  vigor  from  en- 
joyment, supplies  each  day,  each  hour,  with  a  perpetual 
source  of  independent  and  rational  pleasure."  Now 
Gibbon  is  classed  by  M.  Fouillee  among  the  lymphatics 
—  temperaments  incapable  of  the  higher  degrees  of 
feeling  and  emotion;  and  this  is  a  temperament  found 
more  often  among  men  of  business  and  active  life  than 
among  lovers  of  books.  Yet  anyone  will  notice  how 
much  more  keen  is  the  note  of  Gibbon  here  than  where 
he  speaks  of  other  occurrences  in  his  life  —  he  actually 
makes  use,  for  instance,  of  the  word  passion.  Much  the 
same  note  of  intensity  and  enjoyment  is  sounded  by 
Descartes  in  speaking  of  his  study  of  mathematics, 
poetry,  and  philosophy;  by  Count  Cesare  Balbo  of 
mathematics  alone.  To  these  examples  of  extreme 
passion,  Renan  adds  the  fact  that  mathematical  com- 
binations caused  him  to  dream  by  night  and  by  day. 
The  hours  spent  in  study  were  the  only  ones  in  which 
Wilhelmine  of  Bareith  and  Leonora  Christina  of  Den- 
mark were  able  to  forget  their  inferior  and  brutal  sur- 


GENIUS   AND   CHARACTER  389 

roundings;  had  such  hours  been  longer,  ^yilhelmine 
would  have  been  a  less  embittered  woman.  Sir  Thomas 
Bodley  tells  us,  with  tranquil  happiness,  how  he  set 
up  his  staff  ''at  the  library  door  in  Oxon,"  where 
indeed  it  would  seem  as  if  a  little  cloud  of  that  happi- 
ness had  clung,  like  some  subtle  perfume,  ever  since. 
Agrippa  d'Aubigne  contrasts  the  peace  of  his  study  with 
the  distracting  disappointments  of  the  Court;  while 
two  famous  Italians,  Petrarch  and  Vico,  asked  nothing 
more  of  life  than  the  health  and  leisure  to  spend  the  re- 
mainder of  it  with  the  only  friends  who  never  betrayed 
them.  When  Vico  lays  down  the  pen,  and  bequeaths 
his  manuscript  of  the  Nicova  Scienza  to  a  friend,  he 
inscribes  it  with  a  little  epitaph,  as  if  erecting  a 
tombstone  over  his  happy  work;  and  all  Petrarch's 
tissue  of  brilliant  vanities  seems  willingly  laid  aside  for 
that  tranquilhty  of  soul,  wherein  he  shows  himself 
''without  noise,  without  wanderings,  without  anxieties, 
always  reading  and  writing  and  praising  God.'"  *  Such 
women  as  Madame  Roland,  Madame  de  Genlis,  Mad- 
emoiselle de  Chastenay,  share  the  happiness  given  by  a 
life  of  study;  and  to  the  first  it  seems  even  to  have 
replaced  the  ordinary  feminine  satisfaction  of  the 
emotions.  Mademoiselle  de  Chastenay,  on  the  con- 
trary, avows  her  life  to  have  been  lonely,  although  she 
adds:   "L' etude  m'a  comblee  de  ses  jouissances;  mon 

^  "  Pur  tranquillo  nell'  anima,  senza  romori,  senza  divagamenti, 
senza  soUicitudini —  leggendo  sempre,  e  scrivendo,  e  lodando 
Dio." 


390  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

goM  pour  toutes  les  directions  de  I'esprit  a  accru  chaque 
jour  d'avantage."  Since  woman  is  so  sensitively  poised 
in  regard  to  what  brings  her  sorrow  or  joy,  all  that 
female  autobiographers  have  to  say  on  the  subject  is 
of  interest;  and  a  comparison  of  their  experiences  on 
this  point  at  least  sounds  encouragement  for  the  future. 
As  we  look  back  over  these  quotations,  surely  weari- 
ness of  intellect  is  not  the  prevailing  note;  on  the  con- 
trary, there  seems  to  be  present  in  them,  as  a  whole,  a 
peculiarly  vital  freshness  of  interest.  No  doubt  the 
scholar's  sense  of  his  superior  and  recondite  joy  has 
lent  him  an  irritating  aspect  of  patronage.  His  passing 
moods  of  inadequacy  and  humility  at  falling  short  of 
his  ideal,  have  then  been  gratefully  seized  upon  to  con- 
trast with  the  fatuous  and  empty  gayety  of  the  world. 
Thus  tradition  has  been  opposed  to  tradition  without 
encountering  the  corrective  of  thought.  Not  that  your 
intellectual  and  creative  life  is  necessarily  a  tranquil 
one.  MilFs  education  was  dangerous  to  happiness,  yet 
Mill's  life  was  happy,  if  not  tranquil.  The  strain  be- 
tween the  intellect  and  the  temperament  of  Sonia 
Kovalevsky  interfered  with  her  peace  and  her  happi- 
ness. There  is  a  price  to  be  paid  for  every  joy.  If  Dar- 
win regrets  he  cannot  read  Shakspere,  yet  he  has  no 
moment  of  ennui  during  scientific  observation.  Un- 
even temperaments  like  Cardan's  and  Rousseau's  must 
suffer;  yet  the  splendid  force  of  the  ItaUan  is  untouched 
by  intellectual    satiety,  and   the   only  peace    in  the 


GENroS   AND   CHARACTER  391 

troubled  movement  of  the  Confessions  is  when  Jean 
Jacques  is  steadily  at  work. 

One  could  go  on,  if  it  were  necessary,  and  give  con- 
verse examples,  showing  the  unhappiness  of  those  who 
might  have  shared  these  pleasures  and  who  chose  other 
paths ;  but  little  is  to  be  gained.  The  cry  of  satiety,  of 
the  vanity  of  knowledge,  does  not  come  from  the  intel- 
lectual man;  it  is  a  catch-word  to  bolster  up  the  slothful 
and  the  inadequate  in  his  slothfulness  and  inadequacy; 
it  is  based  on  observation, not  of  the  great,  original  mind, 
but  of  the  little,  imitative  mind.  No  doubt  the  third- 
rate  have  moments  of  intellectual  weariness  unknown 
to  a  Goethe  or  a  Humboldt.  We  may  be  sorry  for  them 
and  ourselves,  yet  we  must  be  candid  and  meek.  Our 
misfortune  it  may  be  that  we  cannot  partake  of  this 
privilege  —  these  joys,  which  alone  outlive  the  loss  of 
health  and  friends,  the  loss  of  place  and  money.  The 
intellectual  life  holds  the  only  enduring  and  vital  hap- 
piness which  humanity  is  like  to  know,  since 

"  Beyond  this  place  of  wrath  and  tears. 
Looms  but  the  horror  of  the  shade." 

And  if  through  the  expression  and  operation  of  their 
genius  so  many  persons  draw  happiness  and  health, 
what  is  the  commentary  on  genius  itself?  And  where 
the  development  of  a  man's  genius  brings  to  bear  upon 
his  life  and  character  a  steadying,  tranquilizing,  con- 
structive influence,  how  can  genius  be  regarded  as  a 
neurosis? 


392  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The  Lombrosian  theory  has  drawn  its  chief  support 
from  consideration  of  those  eccentricities  so  often  at- 
tending on  genius.  Misconception  of  the  psychology 
and  functions  of  the  self-study  has  served  to  accent  and 
emphasize  such  data  as  the  Lombrosian  theory  ob- 
tained; which  misconception,  if  avoided,  or  even  if 
merely  reconsidered,  must  have  led  to  a  total  readjust- 
ment of  the  theory  to  meet  the  facts. 

Both  Ribot  and  Grasset  point  out  the  failure  to  take 
into  account  those  positive  cases  where,  as  we  have 
shown,  the  operation  of  genius  has  resulted  in  the  sub- 
ject's renewed  health  of  mind  and  body;  or  those  nega- 
tive cases  where  intellectual  superiority  in  no  way  tends 
to  lead  a  rational  person  away  from  his  rationality. 
Both  have  been  cited  in  this  chapter;  for  clearness  it  may 
be  best  to  repeat  that  Miss  Martineau,  Alfieri,  Beranger, 
Petrarch,  would  be  types  of  the  first  group;  Franklin, 
Gibbon,  Renan,  Scott,  Goethe,  of  the  second.  Beran- 
ger's  statement  is  unequivocal  and  definite,  as  we  have 
just  read.  Such  a  man  as  Edward  Gibbon,  working  with 
regularity  and  method,  is  as  far  as  possible  removed 
from  eccentricity  or  abnormality.  Franklin's  education 
of  his  powers  showed  a  system  and  persistency  which 
is  the  very  soul  of  health.  In  truth,  Franklin's  genius 
lay  in  his  capacity  to  pass  steadily  onward  in  every- 
thing he  undertook,  from  the  primer  to  the  text-book, 
as  it  were,  stretching  out  his  powers,  little  by  little, 
until  they  covered  the  ground.    The  same  progressive 


GENIUS   AND   CHARACTER  393 

advance  is  found  in  Renan,  in  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  in 
Petrarch,  in  Descartes,  in  Al-Ghazzali.  An  assemblage 
of  testimonials  to  the  happiness  of  these  subjects  has 
at  least  this  significance,  that  their  happiness  carries 
with  it  the  connotation  of  freedom  and  normality.  And 
since,  as  Ribot  has  noted,  and  we  have  read  with  con- 
\4ction,  the  exercise  of  the  intellectual  and  artistic  fac- 
ulties appears  to  be  the  only  form  of  happiness  with 
some  persons  which  is  persistent  and  keen  enough  to 
perpetuate  itself  upon  paper  —  it  follows  that  a  high 
degree  of  freedom  and  normality  must  have  been  pre- 
sent in  those  perpetuated  moments  of  happiness.  Per- 
haps the  key-note  of  the  life  may  have  been  bitterness 
and  sorrow,  as  when  we  close  the  record  of  Berlioz  or 
of  Brydges;  yet  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  the  bit- 
terness and  sorrow  have  been  due  to  forces  of  tempera- 
ment working  against  and  not  with  the  genius  of  the 
subject.  If  therefore  the  manifestation  of  talent  in  its 
highest  form,  which  we  term  genius,  has  been  found  to 
lead  to  uninterrupted  happiness  in  some  cases,  —  to 
their  only  moments  of  happiness  in  others,  —  what  right 
have  we  to  regard  the  possessors  of  this  genius  as  dis- 
eased, neurotic,  abnormal,  because  of  that  possession? 
The  alienist  tells  us  that  the  very  first  effect  of  mental 
or  nervous  illness  is  to  disturb  the  sense  of  tranquillity 
and  joy.  Fear,  alarm,  melancholy,  distress,  these  are 
among  the  first  tokens  that  something  is  wrong.  Save 
in  rare  cases  of  a  particular  delirium,  anything  approach- 


394  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

ing  natural,  healthy  joy  is  unknown  to  the  insane, 
and  anything  approaching  serenity  of  mind  is  absolutely 
impossible.  Religious  insanity  may  bring  instants  of 
ecstasy,  but  these  are  invariably  followed  by  long  re- 
actions of  fear  and  melancholy,  and  tranquiUity  is 
conspicuously  absent  in  the  religious  fanatic.  This  is 
strikingly  perceived  in  the  case  of  Suso,  the  joy  and 
tranquillity  of  whose  early  and  normal  religious  feeling 
give  way,  step  by  step,  to  the  gloomy  and  morbid  hor- 
rors of  religious  mania. 

If  the  question  of  happiness  in  the  intellectual  life 
thus  has  its  bearing  upon  genius,  the  question  of  charac- 
ter goes  at  once  to  the  very  heart  of  the  matter.  Lom- 
broso  dogmatically  states  that  ''geniuses  have  scarcely 
any  character,"  and  he  quotes  the  self-accusations  of 
Cardan  and  Rousseau  as  a  proof  of  their  lack  of  charac- 
ter. To  us,  who  have  just  read  that  admirably-bal- 
anced and  dignified  paragraph  in  which  the  first  psy- 
chologist presents  his  errors  and  virtues  for  our  study, 
starting  with  the  remark  that  no  subject  is  more  diffi- 
cult of  comprehension  —  this  sweeping  assertion  brings 
amazement  and  incredulity.  As  to  Rousseau,  indeed,  he 
may  be  handed  over  to  Professor  Lombroso,  3^et  the 
only  character  Rousseau  seems  to  have  shown  has  been 
directed  to  self  understanding  in  the  Confessions.  If 
by  character  is  meant  the  power  by  which  we  control 
and  regulate  the  forces  and  instincts  of  our  tempera- 
ment and  heredity,  it  appears  to  be  often  as  much  a 


GENIUS   AND   CHARACTER  395 

part  of  genius  as  genius  itself.  When  Goethe,  who  was 
nervous  at  high  places,  deliberately  cured  himself  by 
ascending  steeple  after  steeple,  he  displayed  character. 
When  Alfieri  bound  himself  to  a  chair  to  break  an  un- 
worthy passion,  the  means  seem  to  us  violent,  but  the 
act  showed  character.  Who  could  have  undergone  in 
Heine's  way,  the  incredible  tortures  of  his  mattress- 
grave,  but  a  man  of  high  character?  The  attacks  of 
pain  borne  stoically  for  many  years  by  the  great  Earl 
of  Shaftesbury,  the  military  service  undergone  at  the 
call  of  duty  and  patriotism  by  the  infirm  Giuseppe 
Giusti,  the  youthful  fortitude  of  Massimo  d'Azeglio,  do 
not  these  things  display  character?  Do  every -day  per- 
sons of  no  ability  and  ideas  show  more  character  in  the 
conduct  of  their  lives,  and  in  adversity,  than  did  such 
scholars  as  Thomas  Platter,  such  students  as  the  broth- 
ers Chambers,  such  a  man  as  Walter  Scott,  such  famous 
women  as  Lady  Fanshawe,  as  Leonora  Christina,  as 
Catherine  II,  as  Margaret  of  Newcastle,  as  Madame 
Roland? 

Fouillee's  view  that  intelligence  is  an  essential  factor 
of  character,  seems  to  the  reader  of  autobiographies 
wholly  convincing.  The  conquest  of  self,  if  difiicult 
even  with  intelligence,  is  impossible  without  it;  your 
stupid  and  dull  person  lacks  character,  though  he  may 
be  tenacious  and  obstinate.  To  the  instances  quoted 
of  strength  of  character,  Fouillee  adds  those  of  Dr. 
Johnson  and  Harriet  Martineau,  epitomizing  their  two 


396  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

cases  with  a  distinction  of  phrase  which  m\ist  be  re- 
peated: "Nes  avec  un  temperament  melancoUque,  lis 
6taient  des  attristes.  .  .  .  Mais,  par  leur  intelligence  et 
leur  volonte,  ils  firent  un  noble  tentative  pour  triompher 
de  leur  tendance  organique  au  decouragement.  ...  A 
la  melancolie  du  temperament  ils  ont  oppose  la  serenity 
du  caractere." 

If  an  autobiographer  of  importance  (genius,  Professor 
Lombroso  would  call  him)  possess  happiness  in  work 
and  strength  of  character,  it  would  not  seem  easy  to 
find  the  materials  to  manufacture  a  lunatic  out  of  him. 
Questions  of  hallucination,  of  special  eccentricity  in 
personal  habits,  need  to  be  somewhat  more  closely 
scrutinized  than  heretofore,  ere  they  can  upset  so  solid 
a  basis.  For  example,  the  visions  of  Cardan,  of  which 
Lombroso  and  Lelut  make  so  much,  we  have  seen  to 
be  precisely  those  common  to  high-strung  children  the 
world  over;  his  impotency  becomes  on  close  examina- 
tion merely  a  youthful  dread  of  impotency,  while  the 
buzzing  of  voices  in  his  ears  is  plain  ''misinterpreted 
observation"  of  conditions  produced  by  anaemia  and 
catarrh.  The  whole  structure  of  the  theory  of  his 
madness  crumbles  when  the  facts  are  examined  at  first- 
hand; and  all  that  is  left  is  a  certain  repetition  and 
wandering  of  style  in  the  De  Vita  Propria,  surely  not 
unaccountable  in  a  man  writing  at  seventy-five  —  who 
did  not  live  to  revise  his  work. 

To  what  theory,  therefore,  on  the  subject  do  these 


GENIUS   AND   CHARACTER  397 

records  add  their  weight?  It  is  useless  to  repeat  in  this 
book  the  examples  which  by  their  mere  morbidity, 
eccentricity,  or  abnormality,  seem  to  support  the  Lom- 
brosian  view.  But,  as  M.  Joseph  Grasset  ^  points  out 
in  a  recent  and  valuable  work,  unless  an  explanation 
covers  all  the  facts,  it  does  not  explain.  He  states  as 
his  opinion  that,  '' scientifically,  one  thing  only  is 
demonstrated,  and  that  is:  the  frequent  coexistence 
of  intellectual  superiority  and  a  neurosis  in  the  same 
individual";  and  later  makes  the  statement:  '' Genius 
is  not  a  neurosis,  but  a  neurosis  is  more  often  the 
penalty  of  genius.'* 

The  line  between  normal  and  abnormal  in  the  intel- 
lectual life  is  one  perpetually  in  dispute;  and  a  more 
general  and  thorough  study  of  important  individuals 
is  necessary  before  it  can  be  established.  Only  then  will 
it  be  possible  authoritatively  to  do  that  which  Grasset 
declares  is  his  purpose:  "To  study  and  point  out  the 
relation  in  which  intellectual  superiority  stands  to  ner- 
vousness, to  show  the  existence  and  the  true  nature 
of  this  relation,  and  to  define  the  position  of  the 
abnormal  intellectual  superiority  in  the  neuropathic 
family."  ^ 

Then,  perchance,  it  will  be  easier  to  answer  such  a 

question  as  Ribot  asks  about  the  significant  figure  of 

Goethe,  a  question,  by  the  way,  which  is  not  answered 

by  the  Wahrheit  und  Dichtung.    ''On  a  souvent  cit6 

1  "  Le  Demi-Fou."  ^  jbid. 


398  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Goethe/'  says  the  psychologist/  ''comme  une  belle 
example  de  ponderation  et  d'^quilibre;  mais  est-ce  un 
g^nie  ou  un  caractere?" 

By  his  misconception  of  the  value  of  self-study, 
Goethe  has  deprived  us  of  an  opportunity  to  see  at  work 
the  high  powers  of  a  complex,  well-balanced  modern 
man,  and  this  is  indeed  a  deprivation.  But  at  least 
his  record  sounds  the  dominant  notes  of  happiness  and 
health.  Many  prevailing  impressions  of  the  uneven 
temperament  and  nervous  reactions  of  the  intellectual 
worker,  have  been  taken  from  letters  and  diaries, 
wherein,  as  we  have  read,  the  fugitive  mood  is  apt  to 
become  exaggerated  in  crystallization.  The  total  im- 
pression alone  should  count,  —  the  sum  total  of  such 
moods  brought  under  the  corrective  influence  of  the 
autobiographical  intention.  And  to  receive  such  col- 
lective impression  needs  more  receptivity,  more  open- 
mindedness,  than  the  reader  of  these  documents  has 
generally  been  willing  to  give  them. 

In  M.  Fouillee's  Temperament  et  Caractere  (from 
which  it  has  been  a  delight  to  quote),  the  author  men- 
tions that  Auguste  Comte  wished  to  enrich  psychology 
by  a  series  of  monographs  on  men  of  special  and  re- 
markable aptitudes,  and  had  already  commented  on 
their  enormous  variety.  The  work  is  worthy  of  a 
broadly  generalizing  mind.  Doubtless  in  reading  such 
studies  it  would  be  not  so  much  the  special  aptitude 
^  "  Psychologic  des  Sentiments. " 


GENIUS   AND   CHARACTER  S99 

of  the  person  which  would  repay  us,  as  the  revelation 

—  to  quote  M.  Fouillee  once  more  —  of  ''le  veritable 
caractere  de  la  personne,  sa  vie  consciente  et  volon- 
taire,  la  maniere  dont  elle  reagit  sur  sa  nature  par  son 
intelligence  et  sa  volonte." 

And  it  is  this  after  all,  first  and  last,  for  which  we 
turn  to  the  autobiography.  Our  interest  in  the  mathe- 
matical faculty  of  Cardan  is  not  the  main  interest  of 
De  Vita  Propria.  The  description  of  Cellini's  bronze 
casting,  of  Babbage's  calculating  machine,  of  Rafaello 
da  Montelupo's  curious  gift  of  left-hand  dra\\ing,  of 
^'I'aptitude  singuliere  de  me  grimer  "  of  Eugene  Vidocq 

—  these  are  not  the  chief  things  for  which  we  look  into 
their  lives:  it  is,  first  of  all,  for  "the  real  character  of  the 
person."  And  secondly,  I  think  it  is  their  happiness  or 
unhappiness  which  moves  us.  We  are  idealists  in  the 
main.  The  whole  trend  of  the  modern  attempt  to  ana- 
lyze, to  comprehend  the  phenomena  of  religion,  the 
phenomena  of  genius,  is  but  an  indication  of  our  ideal- 
ism. We  seek  in  these  records  a  warrant  for  our  ad- 
miration, a  support  to  our  ambition,  or  even  a  valid 
excuse  for  our  sloth.  We  wish  to  be  able  to  point  to 
some  great  and  successful  exemplar  in  the  intellectual 
life. 

And  some  of  us  think  that  we  have  but  to  look,  — 
that  we  do  not  need  to  regard  ourselves  as  unbalanced, 
neuropathic,  or  diseased,  because  we  feel  beating 
within  our  soul  the  wings  of  some  uplifting  inspiration. 


400  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

It  would  rather  seem  to  bear  us  to  higher  airs  of  health 
and  happiness.  And  so,  where  we  close  the  final  pages 
of  some  faulty,  noble  life,  we  catch  an  echo  of  its  ex- 
ultation, and  are  able  to  exclaim,  with  a  distinguished 
Frenchman:  ''Heureux  ceux  qui  dans  la  triste  epoque 
ot  nous  vivons,  ont  pu  se  degager  des  mediocrites  qui 
nous  entourent;  qui  se  sont  fait,  dans  les  pays  en- 
chanteurs  de  Tantiquite,  a  quelques  pas  du  Parthenon 
et  du  Colisee,  ou  dans  les  regions  sereines  de  la  science 
pure,  un  coin  de  terre  benie,  ou  n'arrive  pas  le  bruit 
des  luttes  steriles;  et  qui  poursuivent,  dans  le  silence 
et  la  paix,  I'^tude  des  grands  questions  qu'ils  ont 
entrepris  de  r^soudre."  ^ 

^  Gaston  Boissier. 


CHAPTER  XX 

CONCLUSION 

The  two  hundred  and  sixty  capital  autobiographies 
which  form  the  basis  of  the  foregoing  study  contain 
many  characteristics  which  must  escape  classification, 
many  riches  a  general  survey  must  needs  omit.  To 
urge  the  reader  to  the  volumes  themselves  must  be, 
therefore,  a  final  task.  Choice  for  another  is  at  all  times 
ungrateful;  if  this  book  does  nothing  else,  it  may  at 
least  provide  investigators  with  a  list  of  considerable 
autobiographies  to  which  they  may  turn  for  much 
material  hitherto  difficult  of  access.  Such  ideas  and 
aims  have  caused  us  perforce  to  neglect  the  literary 
aspect  of  many  of  these  writers;  and  when  one  comes 
to  cast  a  backward  glance  over  beloved  pages,  this 
may  seem  a  neglect  indeed.  What  storied  wealth, 
what  unforgettable  passages  have  delighted  us,  have 
rew^arded  our  daily  task!  What  creative,  constructive 
criticism  from  Goethe,  at  whom  we  have  too  much 
cavilled!  What  pages  of  delicate  and  glowing  description 
from  Renan  and  Marmontel!  The  high  imaginative 
beauty  in  the  devotional  outbursts  of  Augustin  and 
Teresa  opened  to  the  fervent  readers  of  the  past  depth 
upon  depth  of  radiance  and  ecstasy.  Sentences  there 
are  in  these  records,  and  paragraphs,  and  incidents. 


402  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

which  have  become  the  possession  of  all  time.  No 
epic  has  given  more  of  a  thrill  than  Monluc  in  battle: 
"Le  capitaine  Carbon,  qui  n'estoit  point  arme,  ayant 
est^  auparavant  bless^  d'une  arquebuzade  au  bra^ 
gauche,  vint  h  moy  et  me  dit  ces  mots:  *0  Monluc, 
mon  amy,  pousse  hardiment,  je  ne  t'abandonneray 
pas! '"  There  are  battles  too  of  another  sort;  with  the 
same  stress  of  emotion  we  turn  Mrs.  Oliphant's  last 
wonderful  page.  The  memory  is  crowded  with  pictures. 
Some  we  have  tried  to  draw  within  this  book,  but 
there  are  others:  Salimbene's  father  vainly  imploring 
the  young  mystic  to  return  home;  Jerome  Cardan 
pleading  for  the  life  of  a  wretched  son;  Ousama  ib'n 
Mounkidh  and  the  Frankish  crusader;  Alfieri  writing 
his  first  sonnet  in  the  darkened  bedroom  of  his  mis- 
tress; Marguerite  de  Valois  tending  the  Fosseuse,  — 
pictures  which  serve  to  show  us  as  nothing  else,  how 
between  the  past  and  present  "there  is  a  great  gulf 
fixed." 

There  are  words,  too,  unforgotten,  gorgeous  in  quo- 
tation. "Midsummer,  like  an  army  with  banners,  was 
moving  through  the  heavens,"  writes  De  Quincey;  and 
similar  splendor  lingers  in  Egerton  Brydges,  some  of 
v/hose  phrases  do  not  deserve  entombment  with  what  is 
dead  in  his  two  volumes.  "All  our  feelings  and  buried 
ideas  instantly  respond  to  them  [the  great  poets]  like 
the  strings  of  an  iEolian  harp  to  the  breeze.  They  have 
a  transparency  and  native  fire  which  lights  up  all  the 


CONCLUSION  403 

slumbering  and  cloudy  figures  of  our  brains,  and  gives 
an  instant  glow  to  the  currents  which  circle  around  the 
heart."  Too  much  of  patchwork  is  there,  perhaps,  in 
this  sort  of  citation;  and  yet  Brydges  has  a  love  and 
enthusiasm  for  literature  informing  all  his  utterances  on 
the  subject,  which  are  a  perpetual  inspiration  in  them- 
selves. "Words,"  he  says,  ''are  unstudied  breathings 
from  the  fire  of  the  imaginative  power.  ...  I  never 
look  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  and  skies  without  a 
sense  of  deep,  mysterious  impressions,  which  I  feel  a 
longing  desire  to  discriminate  and  embody  in  language." 
Perceptions  so  delicate  and  so  purely  literary  as  these 
arise,  Brydges  thinks,  from  **a  flow  of  high  feeling 
casting  its  colors  upon  a  richly-stored  mind,"  and 
are  equalled  but  rarely;  hardly  even  by  George  Sand 
or  Rousseau.  They  come  upon  us  with  fresh  vitality 
and  suggestiveness,  as  forming  part  of  a  necessary 
equipment  of  taste.  Such  criticisms  as  may  be  found 
in  Colley  Gibber,  or  in  Lord  Clarendon's  sketch  of  his 
friend  Ben  Jonson,  or  in  the  estimate  of  Dr.  Samuel 
Johnson  by  men  so  dissimilar  as  John  Ruskin  and 
Egerton  Brydges,  cannot  but  be  inspiring  to  the 
critical  faculty. 

But,  after  all,  one  must  not  choose  a  reader's  pleasures 
for  him,  since  the  first  pleasure  of  all  is  liberty  of  choice. 
He  will  like  us  while  he  roves  at  will,  and  if  he  knew  it 
all  before,  surely  he  will  like  us  even  better.  To  glance 
over,  to  repeat  again,  the  striking  passages  and  vivid 


404  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

pictures  in  our  library  of  autobiographies  is  impossible 
here,  yet  it  might  have  one  advantage;  for  it  would 
serve  to  emphasize  and  renew  that  hope  of  friendliness, 
with  which  we  beguiled  you  in  the  beginning.  As  it  is, 
however,  we  have  done  by  the  way  of  an  introduction 
all  one  may;  the  further  intimacy  lies  with  you.  There 
is  the  crowded  bookshelf,  and  there  your  friend  awaits 
you. 

At  the  very  outset  of  this  study  its  object  was  de- 
clared to  be  mainly  suggestive,  rather  than  conclusive. 
Human  nature  resembles  a  work  in  many  volumes,  of 
which  the  earlier  are  lost  and  the  latest  are  unpublished. 
No  honest  observer  of  personal  records  but  would  hesi- 
tate to  draw  hasty  inferences  from  such  material;  and 
he  would  be  dull,  rather  than  dishonest,  if  he  were  not 
overwhelmed  with  their  wealth  of  suggestion.  But, 
as  was  said  in  the  introductory  chapter,  in  spite  of 
all  tentative  openmindedness,  during  the  progress  of 
this  work  certain  conclusions  were,  of  necessity,  forced 
upon  one.   The  facts  have  drawn  them;  the  writer 

'  seems  rather  to  become  the  passive  spectator  of  an 
orderly  marshaling  of  data;  and  these  data  are  general 

\  as  well  as  concrete.  The  whole  subject  of  introspec- 
tion is  peculiarly  Uable  to  misconception.  Although  an 
understanding  of  subjective  tendencies  lies  at  the  very 
root  of  an  understanding  of  literature,  yet  no  sub- 
ject is  less  comprehended  to-day.  The  ground  about 
it  needs  to  be  cleared,  and  the  vague,  prevalent  ideas  to 


CONCLUSION  405 

be  classified  and  brought  to  book.  Our  witnesses  are 
treated  much  as  witnesses  in  a  court  of  law,  and  we,  as 
jury,  may  draw  our  own  conclusions.  If  such  conclu- 
sions have  not  been  drawn  hitherto,  it  is  because  the 
whole  subject  of  a  man's  attitude  toward  and  under- 
standing of  himself  is  a  subject  unresolved  and  unde- 
fined, relying  hitherto  not  upon  authority,  but  upon  the 
chance  theory,  the  passing  prejudice  of  the  sciolist. 
And,  pending  an  examination  of  the  field  by  an 
authority,  it  will  be  well  to  restate  those  conclusions 
to  which  our  present  survey  seems  to  point. 

Beginning  at  the  beginning,  the  indication  is  plain 
that  a  subjective  trend  of  thought  made  its  appearance 
in  literature,  rather  suddenly  than  slowly,  during  the 
first  three  hundred  years  of  the  Christian  era.  Exami- 
nation of  its  early  manifestations  shows  the  primal 
cause  to  be  religious  emotion:  for  the  second  type  of 
the  subjective  document  —  that  is,  the  scientific  —  did 
not  make  its  appearance  until  the  sixteenth  century. 
These  are  facts  demonstrated  by  history. 

When  one  turns  to  the  documents  themselves,  an 
investigation  begins  most  naturally  with  a  comparison 
of  the  reasons  for  writing  them,  and  of  the  attitude  they 
take,  Tvith  like  attitudes  in  diaries  and  in  letters.  Results 
of  such  comparison  force  upon  us  the  conviction  that  the 
obscure  and  deep-seated  psychological  condition  which 
produces  the  incitement  to  serious  autobiography  pro- 
duces also  a  governing  power  in  the  mind  of  the  self- 


406  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

portrayer,  which  we  have  termed  the  autobiographical 
intention.  Works  written  according  to  the  autobio- 
graphical intention  are  written  *'as  if  no  one  in  the 
world  were  to  read  them,  yet  with  the  purpose  of  being 
read."  Conformation  to  this  standard  permits  us  (al- 
ways within  recognized  limits)  to  believe  in  their  sin- 
cerity, and  to  trust  their  information.  Cases  apparently 
contradicting  this  statement  will  be  found,  on  closer 
inspection,  to  be  usually  cases  of  ''misinterpreted  ob- 
servation," of  which  the  conversion-ecstasy  of  Robert 
Blair,  the  halo  of  Cellini,  the  tutelary  genius  of  Cardan, 
are  prominent  examples.  Finally,  the  law  of  the  sub- 
jective self-study  is  seen  to  be  that  its  manifestations 
invariably  precede  and  accompany  movements  of  intel- 
lectual significance ;  and  that,  conversely,  in  times  when 
great  warlike  activities  and  political  upheavals  make 
their  special  demand  upon  the  objective  energies  of  a 
people,  the  subjective  record  diminishes  in  proportion, 
or  wholly  disappears  from  literature.  Such  are  the  ob- 
servations to  be  made  after  a  survey  of  the  autobio- 
graphy in  its  more  general  aspects;  and  this  definition  of 
them  enables  the  reader  to  form  a  clear  idea  what  the 
documents  are  which  he  is  about  to  approach,  and 
what  causes  and  laws  regulate  their  particular  charac- 
teristics. The  section  on  Groups,  moreover,  examined 
together  with  its  Appendix,  endeavors  to  give  some  con- 
ception of  the  part  these  documents  may  be  permitted 
to  play  in  sociological  and  historical  investigation. 


CONCLUSION  407 

Passing  on  to  the  chapters  dealing  with  the  cases 
themselves,  they  must  be  taken  as  merely  suggestive  to 
the  specialist  of  what  may  be  found  to  do  in  this  field. 
Few  inferences  can  be  made  within  the  scope  of  these 
pages.  It  has  not  been  uninteresting  to  note  that  the 
first  memory  in  healthy  childhood  appears  to  be  always 
of  an  object  or  group  of  objects;  whereas,  if  the  child 
be  abnormal  or  unhealthy,  this  memory  is  invariably 
of  a  state  or  states  of  consciousness.  The  attitude  of 
the  sexes  toward  each  other  and  the  position  of  woman, 
will  be  found  to  have  changed  much  less  than  attitudes 
toward  nature,  and  toward  humor,  and  toward  society 
at  large.  That  the  prevailing  feature  in  the  intellectual 
life  is  its  happiness,  strikes  pleasantly  upon  the  mind, 
and  leads  the  reader  to  dissent  from  the  pathological 
theories  of  genius.  Finally,  to  point  out  that  the  study 
of  religious  confession  has  been,  up  to  the  present, 
based  upon  an  a  priori  method,  wholly  illusory  and 
misleading,  is  a  duty  which  must  not  be  shirked.  Not 
until  the  religious  self-presentation  be  scrutinized  in 
its  entirety,  and  especially  in  its  relation  to  the  scien- 
tific and  philosophic  self-presentation,  can  anything  of 
value  be  drawn  from  it.  This  will  be  the  life-work  of 
some  future  investigator  of  exceptional  patience  in 
ferreting  out  unclassified  and  uncatalogued  material, 
as  well  as  of  reserve  in  withholding  his  results. 

Such  work,  perhaps,  may  not  be  done  till  more  serious 
autobiography  has  been  written.    For  men,  like  chil- 


408  THE   AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

dren,  ape  one  another;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the 
world  so  inspiring  as  the  relation  borne  by  the  powerful 
autobiography  to  literature  and  to  life.  Men  bequeath 
their  outworn  heads  and  bodies  to  science  for  the  good 
of  posterity;  why  should  they  not  so  bequeath  their 
living  brains  and  souls?  Each  of  us  is  a  potential  auto- 
biographer;  to  each  of  us  come  inner  and  outer  experi- 
ences which  may  be  the  parent  of  great  imaginations  yet 
unborn.  Thus,  even  in  another  sense, ''  our  thoughts  are 
as  children  born  to  us  which  we  may  not  carelessly  let 
die."  Men  take  down  with  them  hourly  into  the  grave 
their  radiant  visions  of  the  morning  and  cloudy  visions 
of  the  night,  thus  depriving  us  of  our  precious  heritage 
of  aid  and  understanding.  For  we,  who  remain,  have  a 
right  to  know  what  has  passed  with  those  who  have 
gone  before.  Whether  expressed  in  Pope's  crisp  accents 
of  command:  ''Know  then  thyself,  presume  not  God  to 
scan,"  or  in  the  vaguer  phrases  of  Browning's  Cleon, 
this  right  is  acknowledged,  and  must  not  be  frightened 
out  of  us  by  any  bogey-talk  of  introspection.  Knowl- 
edge is  good,  healthy,  and  religious :  a  love  of  truth  and 
of  their  fellow-men  guided  the  great  self-students  of  the 
past  who  have  helped  so  many,  and  will  guide  the  great 
self-students  of  the  future.  There  is,  there  must  be,  no 
pause  in  man's  desire  to  observe  and  to  comprehend  that 
nearest,  and  yet  most  distant  of  problems  —  himself. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX  A 

REASONS   FOR  WRITING 
Self-Study  and  Science 

Acosta,  Alfieri,  D'  Azeglio,  Bain,  Bashkirtsev,  Bauer,  B^ranger, 
de  Bernis,  Brandes,  Bray,  Brydges,  Bussy,  Caldwell,  Capel- 
Lofft,  Cappe,  Cardan,  Catherine  II,  Cellini,  Chiabrera,  Cobbe, 
Coleridge,  Comines,  Crozier,  Cumberland,  Descartes,  Dun- 
ton,  Edgeworth,  Erasmus,  d'Epinay,  Finney,  Flynt,  Fr6- 
niUy,  Ghazzali,  Gibbon,  Goethe,  Gosse,  Gozzi,  Giusti,  Hay- 
don,  Hayley,  Ali-Hazin,  Heine,  Kovalevsky,  Macready, 
Maimon,  Martineau,  Mill,  North,  Pattison,  Petrarch,  Quinet, 
Raffaello  da  Montelupo,  Renan,  S.  Roberts,  Rousseau,  Sand, 
Scott,  Spencer,  de  Thou,  M.  de  Valois,  Vico,  Villeroy,  Viterbi, 
Wallace,  Wordsworth. 

Request  of  Friends 

Balbo,  Brougham,  Charke,  Claude,  Daschkaw,  Hare,  Lacking- 
ton,  Lamartine,  H.  Mancini,  de  Retz,  Ruskin,  Smiles,  Tay- 
lor, Vambery,  Vidocq. 

No  One  Else  Likely  To  Do  It  or  To  Do  It  So  Well 
Arago,    de    Blowitz,    Cibber,    Goldoni,    Hamerton,    Hutton, 
Huxley,   M.  Mancini,    M.  Newcastle,    Oliphant,  Roberts. 
W.  Scott. 

Money 
Gait. 

Pride  of  Birth 
Reresby. 

Study  of  Insanity 
Beers. 

"To  Emblazon  the  Power  op  Opium" 
De  Quincey. 

To  Revive  His  Latin 
Taswell. 


412  APPENDIX 

Use  of  Children  or  Descendants 

D'Andilly,  D'Aubign^,  Baber,  Bewick,  Blair,  de  Bouillon, 
Bramston,  de  Brienne  plre,  Campbell,  Dupr^,  Fanshawe, 
Franklin,  Gilbert,  Grant,  Herbert,  Jahanghir,  Leonora- 
Christina,  Livingstone,  Locke r-Lampson,  Marmontel,  Priest- 
ley, Pringle,  Salimbene,  Stirredge,  Timur,  Tone. 

Religious  Witness 

Alline,  Ashbridge,  Augustin,  Bellarmin,  A.  Besant,  Bownas, 
Bunyan,  Cartwright,  Chalkley,  Clarke,  Crisp,  Crook,  Da\aes, 
Edmundson,  Ellwood,  Fox,  Gough,  Eraser,  Guibert,  Guyon, 
Hayes,  Hull,  Huet,  Hutchinson,  Lavater,  Newman,  F.  New- 
man, Patrick,  Paulinus,  Pearson,  Prudentius,  Sansom,  Scott, 
Schimmelpenninck,  Stilling,  Suso,  Teresa,  Tolstoi,  White, 
Whitefield,  Woolman,  Young. 

Purely  Apologetic 
Abelard,  Anspach,  Ashe,  Bruno,  Cibber,  Ireland,  Lorenzino, 
"Perdita,"  Psalmanazar,  Sorelli,  Vennar. 

For  Amusement,  or  to  Recall  the  Past 

Andersen,  Arnauld,  Babbage,  Bareith,  Bassompierre,  Ber- 
lioz, de  Brienne  ills,  Bonne val,  Borulaski,  Burns,  Calamy, 
Carlyle,  Casanova,  Chastenay,  Chateaubriand,  Chevemy, 
Clarendon,  Darwin,  Delaunay,  Digby,  Flamsteed,  Fleurange, 
Forbin,  Frith,  Gourville,  S.  of  Hanover,  Hogg,  Hume,  Hunt, 
Josephus,  Kotzebue,  Latude,  Lejeune,  Marbot,  Marmont, 
Monluc,  Montpensier,  Morellet,  Moore,  Motteville,  d'Ober- 
kirch,  Pasquier,  Platter,  Lord  Roberts,  Roland,  Romilly, 
Shaftesbury,  Saint  -  Simon,  Trenck,  TroUope,  Tusser, 
Wolseley. 

No  Reason  Given 

Avicenna,  Bagot,  Bernhardt,  W.  Besant,  Bodley,  R.  &  W. 
Chambers,  Clairon,  de  Choisy,  Crabb-Robinson,  Dumas, 
D'Ewes,  Fletcher,  Genlis,  Georges,  Gifford,  Halkett,  Harris, 
Holcroft,  Holberg,  Khaldoun,  Kropotkin,  Layard,  Lilly, 
LutfuUah,  Madame,  Newton,  Richter,  Ristori,  Rossetti, 
Sah-ini,  Spohr,  Southey,  Symonds,  Talleyrand,  Du  Tilly, 
Vasari,  Whiston. 


APPENDIX 


413 


APPENDIX   B 

Note.  —  To  place  an  autobiographer  in  correct  chronology,  it  is  obvious 
the  date  given  must  be  that  of  his  death.  Yet  it  often  happens  that  a  man 
may  cover  a  certain  era  in  his  autobiography,  and  be  therein  connected  with 
a  certain  group,  and  then  live  so  many  years  after  writing  it  that  the  date  of 
his  death,  taken  by  itself,  would  seem  to  connect  him  with  a  wholly  different 
epoch.  The  reader,  therefore,  is  warned  that  had  a  strictly  chronological 
order  been  kept  in  the  following  lists  the  result  would  have  been  hopelessly 
misleading.  A  degree  of  flexibility  in  arrangement  is  demanded  by  the  very 
nature  of  the  material. 


GROUPS  OF  FRENCH 
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 

[Study  of  French  memoirs  is 
made  easy  by  the  admirable 
collections  of  MM.  Petitot  and 
Monmierqu^,  Guizot,  Barire, 
and  others.] 

lAst  I.  Early  Chrpniclers  and 
Precursors 
These  early  chroniclers  are 
not,  properly  speaking,  auto- 
biographic, but  follow  the  his- 
torical aim  and  method. 

Guihert  and  Ahelard  (letters) 

are   personal   and  subjective, 

but   no   general   tendency   to 

subjecti^'ity  is  yet  established. 

Died 

Guibert  de  Nogent  1124 

Pierre  Ab^lard  1142 

Boucicaut  1370 

Villehardouin  1213 

Joinville  1319 

du  Guesclin  1380 

Pierre  Salmon  1400 

Jean  d'Auton 

During  the  fifteenth  century 

the  chroniclers  form  a  group  in 


manner  and  method.  Before 
the  era  of  Henri  IV,  there  is 
practically  no  personal  study 
written. 

Died 
Enguerrand  de  Monstre- 

let  1444 

d'llliers  1475 

Gui  Rape  1475 

Agricola  [Haussman]       1483 
Jean  de  Troyes  1483 

Robert  de  Clari     ] 
Du  Clercq  j>  ab.  1475 

Boyvin  du  VillarsJ 

List  II,  containing  Group  I 

Those  starred  may  be  called 

the     early     military     group. 

Purely  political  examples  are 

marked  with  a  dagger. 

tOHvier  de  la  Marche        1501 

♦Marguerite  de  Valois       1549 

Louise  de  Savoie  1531 

fDu  Bellay,  G.  1547 

tDu  Bellay,  M.  1559 

tComines,  P.  de  1509 

*de  Bay  art  1524 

*Fleurange  1537 

Jean  de  Fabas  ab.  1550 

Henri  de  Mesmes      ab.  1550 


414 


APPENDIX 


Died 

d'Antras  de  Samazan  1550 

*Guillaume  Paradin  1558 

tVieilleville  1571 

♦Coligny  [destroyed]  1572 

Claude  Hat  on  1582 

St.  Auban  1587 

♦Blaise  de  Monluc  1577 

fMichel  de  Castelnau  1592 

List  III,  containing  Groups  II 
and  III  [Henri  IV  and  Louis 
XIII] 

Historical,  military  group  * 

Personal,     philosophical 

group  t 

[Innumerable  are  the  spuri- 
ous mimoires,  by  Gatien  Cour- 
tilz  de  Sandraz  et  de  Verge.] 
*Choisinin  1600 

*Villeroy  1617 

*de  Thou  1617 

*Marolles,  de  ab.  1620 

""Palma  Cayet  1610 

*Hurault  de  Cheveray      1599 
*Brant6me  1614 

*du  Jon  1602 

♦Pierre  de  TEstoile  1611 

fA.  d'Aubign^    .  1630 

fHenri  de  Bouillon  1623 

♦Richelieu,  Cardinal  1642 

*de  Sully,  Due  1642 

♦Henri  de  Rohan  1638 

fBassompierre  1646 

♦d'Angouleme  1650 

♦F.  de  la  Tour  1652 

♦P^re  Rapin  1669 

fMarie  le  Jars  de  Goumay  1645 
tRen6  Descartes  1650 

♦M.  Merle  ab.  1650 

♦Sirot  [Letouf]  1650 

♦Guisquet  1650 


Died 
♦Gui  Joly  1650 

*Cond6  1650 

♦D'Aumale  et  de  Guise     1650 

Groups  IV  and  V  [Louis  XIV] 
The  number  of  autobio- 
graphies has  doubled  in  fifty 
years.  The  fashion  has  taken 
a  strong  grip  on  the  French 
mind.  Fifteen  are  subjective 
out  of  forty-four,  but  all  of 
them  have  more  subjective 
qualities  than  before. 

Personal,  anecdotal  group  ♦ 

Historical,  political  group  f 

Le  Chdtre  1644 

Guillaume  Laisn6  1655 

♦Lom^nie  de  Brienne        1666 

♦Tavannes,  Guillaume       1663 

tConrart,  Valentin  1675 

Due  de  Nevers  1665 

♦Maneini,  H.  1699 

Mazarin,  Cardinal  1661 

Omer  Talon  1652 

tLenet  1671 

fMontglat  1675 

fMezeray  1683 

fHenri  de  Beau  vols  1684 

Turenne  1675 

♦L.  de  Brienne,  fils  1698 

Gramont  1678 

♦de  Retz  1679 

tLa  Tremouille  1672 

fFontenay-Mareuil  1683 

♦Abb6  Amauld  1694 

Louis  de  Pontis  1670 

Gaspard  de  Chavagnac    1679 

fDuc  de  Choiseul  1675 

tCanlet  (Etienne)  1680 

♦Arnauld  d'Andilly  1674 

fLa  Rochefoucauld  1680 


APPENDIX 


415 


Died 
♦Sophia,  electress  1680 
tDuc  de  Montault  1684 
fMme.  de  Lafayette  1693 
tMme.  de  Motte\'ille  1689 
*Mlle.  de  Montpensier  1693 
tDe  Cosnac  1708 
JDangeau  (Journal)  1720 
fDuchesse  de  Nemours  1707 
♦Pierre  Daniel  Huet  1721 
*Bussy-Rabutin  1716 
♦Jeanne  de  la  Mot  he- 
Guy  on  1717 
fLouis  XIV  (note-book)  1715 
*Marie  Maneini  1715 
TDuc  de  Luynes 
fDuc  de  Richelieu 
♦Lekain,  actor  1778 
*Mme.  mere  du  R^ent  1722 
tGourville  1703 

List  IV,  Group  VI  [Louis  XV] 
Pre  -  revolutionary  group  * 
Historical  and  political  f 

fElie  Benolt  1728 

*Mme.  d'A\Tillon  1729 

fSaint-Simon  1755 

fMme.  du  Hausset  ab.  1755 

*J.  J.  Rousseau  1778 

*d'Epinay  1783 

*Duclos  ab.  1775 

tdu  Forbin  1733 

*de  Choisy  1724 

♦Moreliet  1819 

du  Caylus  1729 

*de  Lauzun  1793 

fd'Argenson  1757 

*Staal-Delaunay  1750 

*Trenck  F.  de  1794 

*de  Bernis  1794 

tde  Maurepas  1781 

fMathieu  Marais  1737 


Died 
*CIairon  1803 

*Coll6  [diary]  1782 

*Louis     Claude     de     St. 

Martin  ah.   1800 

♦Marmontel  1799 

Among      famous      spurious 
cases  of  this  era  may  be  men- 
tioned 
Mme.  du  Barri  1793 

Mme.  de  Pompadour       1764 
Card,  du  Bois  1723 

Ctsse.  Lamotte-Valois      1791 
Faublas,  following  de  Choisy 
Ninon  de  L'Enclos 
Marquise  de  Cr^quy 

Group  VII.  The  Revolution 

Out  of  twenty-five  memoirs 
describing  the  horrors  of  the 
time,  only  two  are  self-studies, 
and  Mme.  Roland  is  of  course 
pre-revolutionary  in  tone. 

Durand  de  Meillerain 

Citoyen  Formey  1797 

Mol6  1802 

Besenval  1791 

Barbaroux  .  1794 

de  Bouill^  1800 

Mme.  Campan  1822 

Mme.  Roland  1793 

de  Latude  1805 

Vigde  Le  Bnin  1842 

Jean  Bailly  1793 
A.  de  la  Ferronays      ab.  1793 

Mme.  d'Oberkirch  1803 
Mme.  de  Laferri&res 
Gen.  Dopcet 
Mme.  de  Linguet 
Larvet 
Weber 

Philippe  d'OrMans  1793 


416 


APPENDIX 


Died 
Dusaulx 

de  Molleville  all  ab.  1800 

Rivarol  1801 

Due  de  Broglie  1804 

de  Boissy  1798 

de  Cartrie  1793 

Group  VIII.  Napoleonic 
The  Napoleonic  memoires 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes. 
The  purely  event  memoire,  writ- 
ten about  Napoleon  and  his 
wars  —  and  the  apologetic  me- 
moire, written  because  the  po- 
litical opinions  and  actions  of 
the  writer  have  subjected  him 
to  criticism.  These  are  fewer, 
but  still  a  definite  cluster,  and 
so  are  starred. 

To  estimate  the  proportion 
one  must  divide  the  Napole- 
onic Group  into  two  sections, 
1805-1850  and  1850-1900. 
Comte  de  S^gur  1805 

Ney  1815 

Rochambeau  1807 

Riouffe  1813 

Malouet  1814 

du  Tilly  1816 

*Mme.  de  Stael  1817 

Boumenne  1769-1814 

Fouch^  (d'Otrante)  1820 

Mme.  de  Rondelet  1820 

Rapp  1821 

Mme.  de  R^musat  1821 

Napoleon's  Note-Book    1821 
Dumouriez  1823 

Lucien  Bonaparte  1824 

Pils,  Grenadier  1823 

Prince  Eugene  1824 


Mme.  de  Genlis 

Sergent  Fricasse 

S^ruzier 

Coignet 

Mme.  Jullien 

Mme.  Cavaignac 

Chaptal 

Savary 

Fr^nilly 
*Berthier 
♦Consul  Barras 

Rimini 


Died 
1825 
1825 
1825 
1825 
1825 
1825 
1828 
1828 
1827 
1829 
1829 
1830 


Mile,     de     Chastenay, 
Duchesse  de  Gontaut  1836 

♦Talleyrand  1838 

M.  Dumas  1837 

Due  de  Rovigo  1833 

Lavallette  1830 

Bardre  1841 

Beugnot  1835 

Miot  de  Melito  1841 

Thiebault  1846 

Macdonald  1840 

Grouchy  1849 

d'Ouvrard  1846 

Lejeune  1848 

Guillon,  Abb^  1847 

Odillon-Barrot  1849 


Group  IX 

*Marmont 

1852 

Riehemont 

1853 

de  Vitrolles 

1854 

Thibaudeau 

1854 

Marbot 

1854 

G^n^ral  P^p^ 

1855 

Mme.  Larochejacquelin  1857 
♦Mile.  Georges  1867 

♦Guizot  1874 

Queen   of  Etniria's 
Diary  ab.  1840 


APPENDIX 


417 


Died 

Oudinot,  Mme. 

Philarete  Chasles 

Gen.  de  Barail  \-ah.  1850 

Mme.  Mere 

Joseph  Bonaparte 

Pasquier  1862 

The  literary  memoir  is  very 
prominent:  although  too 
heterogeneous  to  form  any 
definite  group,  it  yet  possesses 
certain  interesting  group-char- 
acteristics, so  is  starred.  This 
list  does  not  claim  to  cover  all 
the  many  interesting  memoirs, 
only  representative  cases. 


Louis  XVIII 

1824 

*Chateaubriand 

1848 

de  Candolle 

1841 

♦Eugenie  de  Gu^rin 

1848 

*P.  J.  Beranger 

1849 

Vidocq,  E. 

1850 

Dupin  (avocat) 

1855 

Metternich 

1859 

Alexis  de  Tocqueville 

1859 

♦Alfred  de  Musset 

1857 

Falloux 

1856 

*A.  de  Vigny 

1863 

*Lamartine 

1869 

♦George  Sand 

1876 

M.  Claude 

1865 

*A.  Dumas 

1870 

G^n^ral  Fleury 

1884 

Samson 

1870 

Villemessant 

1879 

*de  Goncourt  (Journal) 

ab 

1890 

Maxime  du  Camp 

1894 

*E.  Renan 

1892 

de  Lesseps 

*E.  Quinet 

*P.  de  Kock 

Died 

du  Haussonville 

Canler 
*E.  Legouv^ 

Maine  de  Biran    all  ab.  1870 
♦Daniel  Stern  1890 

Gravi^res  1890 

Sarah  Bernhardt  1906 

GROUPS  OF  ENGLISH 
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 

List  I,  containing  Groups  I,  II, 
and  III 
Our    first    four    names   are 
those  of  writers  whose  auto- 
biographies   are     brief,    mere 
terse  accounts  of  events,  do- 
mestic or  political. 
Thomas  Tusser  1580 

Sir  Thos.  Bodley  1609 

Richard  Vennar  1614 

Lucy  Hutchinson  1620 

In  twenty-five  years  more 
we  find  a  group  of  detailed  and 
subjective  self-studies  (*),  of 
which  Blair  and  his  friends  are 
definitely  religious. 

This  is  a  group  apart  from 
the  Quakers 

The  starred  names  (*)  show 
the  domestic  record  continu- 
ing, and  in  the  hands  of  women. 
Those  marked  with  a  dagger (t) 
are  of  political  and  objective 
chroniclers  merely. 

Note  that  out  of  eighteen 
autobiographies,  but  six  de- 
serve to  be  termed  self-studies. 

I 
♦Margaret  of  Newcastle     1 645 
♦LordHerbertofCherbury  1648 


418 


APPENDIX 


Died 

♦Symonds  d'Ewes  1650 

♦Sir  Kenelm  Digby  1665 

♦Robert  Blair  1666 

fLord  Clarendon  1668 

♦Jamee  Eraser  of  Brae  1639- 
*John  Li\angstone  1672 

n 


♦Walter  Pringle 

1666 

*Ladv  Fanshawe 

1680 

♦William  Lilly 

1681 

fShaftesbury,  Lord 

1683 

ni 
tJames  Melvill 

1683 

fSir  John  Reresby 

1689 

fRichard  Baxter 

1696 

tJohn  Bramston 

1699 

♦Anne,  Lady  Halkett 

1699 

fjohn  Bunyan 

1688 

Group  IV.    English  Quakers 

The  English  Quakers  here 
listed,  form  a  continuous  and 
compact  group,  running  stead- 
ily, without  variation  in  man- 
ner or  method,  as  late  as  1840. 

17th  Century 

John  Audland  1663 

Samuel  Fisher  1665 
Richard  Farnsworth        1666 

William  Caton  1665 

John  Crook  1699 

Stephen  Crisp  1694 

Edward  Burroughs  1662 

James  Parnel  1656 

Isaac  Penington  1679 

Alex.  Jaffray  1673 

Wm.  Dewsbury  1688 

Charles  Marshall  1698 
Frances  Howgil 


George  Fox 
Dr.  John  Rutty 
William  Evans 
Alice  EUis 
John  Wibur 

18th  Century 
Gilbert  Latey 
Elizabeth  Stirredge 
Alice  Hayes 
Margaret  Fox 
Richard  Claridge 
Richard  Davies 
Thos.  Ell  wood 
John  Banks 
Wm.  Edmundson 
Christopher  Story 
George  Whitehead 
Thos.  Story 
Sam.  Bownas 
Jas.  Dickinson 
John  Woolman 
Thos.  Chalkley 
Elizabeth  Ashbridge 
Job  Scott 
Jas.  Gough 
Oliver  Sansom 

19th  Century 
Jane  Pearson 
Abraham  Shackleton 
Henry  Hull 
Thos.  Shillitoe 
Daniel  Wheeler 


Died 
1690 


1705 
1706 
1720 
1702 
1723 
1708 
1713 
1710 
1712 
1720 
1723 
1742 
1753 
1741 
1772 
1741 
1775 
1793 
1712 
1710 


1816 
1818 
1834 
1836 
1840 


List  II,  containing  Groups  V 
and  VI 
Contemporaneous  with 
Group  IV  (Quaker)  is  the  first 
small  cluster  of  genuinely  scien- 
tific self -students  (*).     Seven 


APPENDIX 


419 


names  are  similar  in  idea  and 
in  method,  of  whom  the  great- 
est is  Franklin.  Of  the  remain- 
ing names,  we  find  four  writing 
religious  confessions  wholly  in- 
dependent as  to  creed  (f). 

Died 

Gilbert  Burnet  1715 

*John  Flamsteed  1719 

Wm.  Taswell  1731 

*Edmund  Calamy  1732 

fjohn  Dunton  1733 

*Roger  Xorth  1734 

tW.  Whiston  1749 

CoUey  Gibber  1757 

G.  Charke  1759 

Geo.  Psalmanazar  1763 

*David  Hume  1776 

-  Thos.  Newton  1781 

♦Benjamin  Franklin  1790 

Marv  Robinson  ]^&&0 

*Edward  Gibbon  1794 

T.  W.  Tone  1798 

W.  H.  Ireland  1796 

*  Joseph  Priestley  1805 

fGeorge  Whitefield  1770 

fHenry  AUine  1784 

List  III,  containing  Groups 
VII  and  VIII 

Imitators  of  Franklin  and  of 
Gibbon  (*)  form  a  defined 
Group  from  1809  to  1826. 

List  III  also  contains  a 
subsidiary  Group  (f)  of  literary 
self-analyzers  —  religious  and 
introspective  in  tone. 

Out  of  twenty-seven  names 
twenty  are  strongly  subjec- 
tive, approaching  the  zenith  of 


self-study  in  English.    The  list 
covers  about  fifty  years. 

Died 

*Thomas  Holcroft  1809 

Rich'd  Cumberland  1811 

*Wm.  Hutton  1815 

*Rich'd  Edgeworth  1817 

*  James  Lackington  1815 

*Sam.  Romilly  1818 

tWm.  Hayley  1820 

Arthur  Young  1820 

*C.  Cappe  1821 

*T.  Bewick  1828 

*Wm.  Gifford  1826 

Alexander  Carlyle  1821 

Walter  Scott  1832 

fEgerton  Brydges  1834 

fJohn  Gait  "^  1834 

James  Hogg  1835 

Robt.  Burns  1796 

fCapel-Lofft           .  1837 

tJ.  Blanco  White  1840 

Robt.  Southey  1843 

tB.  R.  Haydon  1846 

*Samuel  Roberts  1848 

tWilliam  Wordsworth  1850 

fLeigh  Hunt  1859 

T.  de  Quincey         *  1859 
*Ann  Gilbert  1860 
tSamuel  T.  Coleridge  1834 
*Robt.   and  Wm.  Cham- 
bers 1871 

IX.  Scientific  Group, 1850-1900 
A  clearly  defined  contempo- 
rary group. 
♦Charles  Darwin 
*T.  Huxley 
♦Alexander  Bain 
♦Herbert  Spencer 
♦John  Stuart  Mill 


420 


APPENDIX 


♦Alfred  RuBsel  Wallace 
*C.  Babbage 
♦Charles  Bray 
♦Harriet  Martineau 
♦Frances  Power  Cobbe 
♦Mark  Pattison 
♦Edmund  Gosse 

Diary 
♦George  John  Romanes 

Later 
Frederic  Harrison 

Group  X.  Miscellaneous  Later 
List,  1850-1900 
The  only  cluster  approach- 
ing a  group  is  the  literary- 
artistic  formed  about  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  movement.  These 
are  starred  (*).  Important 
subjective  cases  (f). 

A.  W.  Trollope 
fAnnie  Besant 

Walter  Besant 

Lord  Brougham 

Lord  Campbell 

Mrs.  E.  Fletcher 

W.  P.  Frith 
fEliz.  Grant 
fA.  J.  C.  Hare 
♦W.  Holman  Hunt 

Henry  Layard 

Col.  Meadows  Taylor 

Lord  Roberts 

F.  Locker-Lampson 

Macready 
tCardinal  Newman 
♦W.  M.  Rossetti 
tM.  O.  W.  Oliphant 
♦J.  A.  Symonds 

Zerah  Colburn 

Lady  Morgan 


Geo.  Harris 
♦Geo.  Moore 

U.  S.  Grant 

Andrew  White 
♦John  Ruskin 

Samuel  Smiles 

Lord  Wolseley 
fF.  W.  Newman 

J.  F.  Clarke 

L.  Agassiz 

Mrs.  Charles  Bagot 
tJohn  Beattie  Crozier 
fC.  G.  Finney 
tP.  G.  Hamerton 

GROUPS    OF    ITALIAN 
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 

First  Group  [Roman-Christian] 
This  is  the  first  clearly  de- 
fined cluster  of  self-students, 
all  religious,  all  Christian,  all 
subjective.  Two  are  prose  con- 
fessions and  two  are  poems. 

A.  D. 

Aurelius  Augustinus    354-430 
Aurelius  Prudentius  Clemens 

348-405 
PauUnus  Pellaeus  376-460 
Patricius  398-469 

List  I.    Chroniclers,  etc. 

The  Florentines  wTote  per- 
sonal and  family  chronicles  as 
early  as  1200-1300.  The  habit 
is  firmly  established  by  the 
14th  century,  although  among 
these  early  historians  there  is 
not,  as  yet,  any  self-study. 

The  fragments  of  autobio- 
graphy taken  from  Petrarch's 
letters  (see  A.  d'  Ancona's  Rac- 


APPENDIX 


421 


colta)  are  the  first  evidence  of 
subjective  work  of  any  value. 
Only  one  subjective  study 
out  of  a  list  of  ten. 

Died 

Ricordano  Malespini        1281 

Dino  Compagni  1312 

Fra  Salimbene  1284 

Giovanni  Diacono  1342 

Lapo  da  Castiglionchio     1381 

^Francesco  Petrarca  1374 

Leon  Battista  Alherti       1472 

In  the  Miscellanea  di  Storia 

Italiana,  pub.  at  Turin,  in  1862 

are 

Gianbernardo  Nicola :  Cronaca. 
Cesare  Nuhilono :   Cronaca  da 

Vigevano. 
Gio,  Andrea  Saluzzo  di  Castel- 
lar,  memoriale  di  1482-1528. 

Group  I 
The  first  group  of  self-stu- 
dents is  starred  (*).  Note  eight 
out  of  eleven  are  highly  sub- 
jective. 

*  Jerome  Aleandri  1542 

Francesco  Guicciardini    1540 

*Lorenzino  da  Medici       1548 

*Benvenuto  Cellini  1571 

*Raffaello  da  Montelupo  1570 

*Girolamo  Cardano  1576 

*Lodovico  Cornaro  1566 

Giorgio  Vasari  1574 

Benedetto  Varchi  1565 

Fragmentary 
♦Andrea  Vesalius         ab.  1560 
*Nicol6  Tartaglia        ab.  1546 

List  II 

*Subjective. 

♦Cardinal  Bellarmin  1621 


Died 

Cardinal  Bentivoglio       1644 

*Gianbattista  Vico  1743 

*Gabriella  Chiabrera  1614 

♦Giordano  Bruno  1600 

Montecucculi,  G^n^ral     1709 
[war  memoirs] 

Later 
A.  M.  Querini  1759 

Group  II 

Great  18th  century  group. 
♦Subjective. 
♦Vittorio  Alfieri  1803 

♦Carlo  Goldoni  1793 

♦Carlo  Gozzi  1806 

♦J.  de  S.  Casanova  1800 

Group  IV.  Revolutionary, 
ab.  1850 
♦  Subjective. 
♦Giuseppe  Giusti  1850 

Garibaldi 

Massimo  d' Azeglio  1866 

♦Silvio  Pellico  1821 

Marco  Minghetti 

Montanelli 

Confalonieri 

Nerucci 

Gessi 

TuUioli 

Barbara 

Lanza  (giomale) 

Conti 
♦Giovanni  Dupr6  1884 

Hayez 

Marchesa  Venuti 

Enrichetta  Caracciolo 

Giuseppe  Campanella 

Conte  di  Arrivabene 

Luigi  Bianchi 


422  APPENDIX 

Died  Died 

Cardinal  Pacca  Viterbi,  Luc  Antonio       1821 

Guido  Sorelli  ab.  1821 

Cesare  Balbo  1844        Tommaso  Salvini    1829 

Ugo  Foscolo  (fictional)  Adelaide  Ristori  1906 

APPENDIX  C 

PROFESSIONS  AND  OCCUPATIONS 

Poets 
Alfieri,  B^ranger,   Brydges,   Burns,   Goethe,  Giusti,'Hayley, 
Heine,  Hogg,  Hunt,  Lamartine,  Locker-Lampson,  Moore,  De 
Musset,  Petrarch,  Rossetti,  Southey,  Wordsworth. 

Novelists 
Andersen,    Besant,    Dumas,    Gait,    Oliphant,    Scott,  Sand, 
Tolstoi,  Trollope. 

Historians 

Abderraliman,  D'Aubigne,  Brantome,  Comines,  Gibbon,  Hume, 
Josephus,  Khaldoun,  De  Thou. 

Playwrights 
Gibber,  Cumberland,  Goldoni,  Gozzi,  Kotzebue,  Marmontel, 

Vennar. 

Artists 

Bashkirtsev,  Cellini,  Bewick,  Dupr6,  Frith,  R.  da  Montelupo, 
W.  B.  Scott,  Vasari. 

Musicians 
Berlioz,  Spohr. 

— '  Court  Personages 

Arnauld,  Anspach,  Bramston,  I^.  de  Brienne  (fils),  De  Bouillon, 
Cheverny,  Daschkaw,  Delaunay,  Digby,  Fanshawe,  H.  Mancini, 
M.  Mancini,  L.  de  Medici,  Montpensier,  Motteville,  Newcastle, 
D'Oberkirch,  Reresby,  Shaftesbury,  Saint-Simon,  Villeroy. 

MONARCHS 

Augustus,  Baber,  Bareith,  Catherine  II,  Caesar,  Jahanghir, 
Leonora-Christina,  Louis  XIV,  Louis  XVIII,  Madame,  L.  de 
Savoie,  S.  of  Hanover,  Timur,  M.  de  Valois. 


APPENDIX  423 

Prisoners 
Kropotkin,  Latude,  L.  Christina,  Trenck. 

(Soldiers) 

Balbo,  Bassompierre,  Bussy,  Flcurange,  Grant,  Forbin,  Le- 
jeune,  Marbot,  Marmont,  Monluc,  Roberts,  Taylor,  Tone, 
Wolseley. 

Statesmen 

D'Andilly,  D' Azeglio,  de  Bernis,  L.  de  Brienne  (pere),  Claren- 
don, Franklin,  Gourville,  Guizot,  Herbert,  Pasquier,  de  Retz, 
de  Sully,  Talleyrand. 

Lawyers 

Campbell,  D'Ewes,  Greville,  Harris,  North,  Robinson,  Romilly, 
Young. 

Actors 
Bauer,  Bernhardt,  Charke,  Clairon,  Georges,  Heiberg,  Mac- 
ready,  "Perdita,"  Ristori,  Salvini,  E.  Terry. 

Doctors 
Caldwell,  Stilling. 

Freaks 
Beers,  Borulaski,  Colbum,  Viterbi. 

Rogues  and  Impostors 
Ashe,  Bonneval,  De  Choisy,  Ireland,  Psalmanazar. 

Adventurers 
Casanova,  Flynt,  Du  Tilly,  Vamb^ry. 

Police  Agents 
Canler,  Claude,  Fouquet,  Vidocq. 

Divines 
Calamy,  Carlyle,  Newton,  Taswell. 

Merchants 
Bray,  R.  &  W.  Chambers,  Dunton,  Gifford,  Holcroft,  Hutton, 
Lackington. 

Domestic 

Bagot,  Cappe,  Fletcher,  Gilbert,  Grant,  Fr^nilly,  Halkett, 
Hutchinson,  Morgan,  S.  Roberts. 


424  APPENDIX 

Religious 
Ab^lard,  Alline,  Ashbridge,  Augustin,  Blair,  Bownas,  Bunyan, 
Cartwright,  Chalkley,  Clarke,  Crisp,  Crook,  Davies,  Edmundson, 
Ellwood,  Finney ,  Eraser,  Fox,  Gough,  Guibert,  Hayes,  Huet,  Hull, 
Livingstone,  Morellet,  Newman,  F.  W.  Newman,  Patrick,  Pear- 
son, Pringle,  Pru dentins,  Salimbene,  Sansom,  Schimmelpenninck, 
Scott,  Stirredge,  Teresa,  White,  Whitefield,  Woolman. 

Philosophers  and  Scientists 

d'Acosta,  Agassiz,  Arago,  Avicenna,  Babbage,  Bain,  Bodley, 
Bruno,  Cardan,  Cobbe,  Darwin,  Descartes,  Erasmus,  Flamsteed, 
Ghazzali,  Hazin,  Holberg,  Huxley,  Kovalevsky,  Layard,  Lilly, 
Lutfullah,  Maimon,  Martineau,  Mill,  Pattison,  Platter,  Priestlev. 
Quinet,  Spencer,  Wallace,  Vico. 

Writers 
Besant,  Blowdtz,  Brandos,  Capel-Lofft,  Chastenay,  Chateau- 
briand, Coleridge,  Edgeworth,  d'^pinay,  Genlis,  Gosse,  Hamer- 
ton.  Hare,  Lavater,   Paulinus,  De  Quincey,   Richter,  Roland, 
Rousseau,  Ruskin,  Smiles,  Sorelli,  Symonds,  Tusser,  Whiston. 


APPENDIX  D 
1.  FIRST  MEMORIES 

One  year.   Gait,  Gosse,  Richter. 

Two  years.  Augustin,  Bernis,  Delaunay,  Herbert,  Hutton, 
Martineau,  Platter,  Quinet,  Reresby,  Roland,  Sand,  Spolir, 
Southey. 

Three  years.  Bagot,  Bain,  Bewick,  Brougham,  Brydges, 
Carlyle,  Dumas,  Edgeworth,  D'Ewes,  Grant,  Gibbon,  Guyon, 
Hare,  Holcroft,  Huxley,  Layard,  Maimon,  Marbot,  Marmont, 
Mill,  D'Oberkirch,  Robinson,  Spencer. 

Four  years.  D'  Azeglio,  Cardan,  Cellini,  Darwin,  Flynt,  Goethe, 
Goldoni,  Priestley,  Ruskin,  Schimmelpenninck,  Taylor. 

Five  years  and  after.  Alfieri,  Babbage,  Blair,  Clarke,  Cobbe, 
Dupr^,  Kovalevsky,  Renan,  Rousseau,  Scott,  Wallace. 

At  eight  years.   Casanova,  Hamerton. 


APPENDIX  425 

2.  STRONG  MEMORIES 
D'Acosta,  Alfieri,  D'Aubign^,  D'  Azeglio,  Bareith,  Bellarmin, 
B^ranger,  Brougham,  Brydges,  Capel-Lofft,  Cardan,  Catherine  II, 
Chateaubriand,  Cobbe,  Coleridge,  Delaunay,  Descartes,  Dumas, 
Erasmus, Flamsteed,  Fletcher,  Frenilly,  Ghazzali,  Gilbert,  Goethe, 
Goldoni,  Hazin,  Herbert,  Holberg,  Holcroft,  Huet,  Khaldoun, 
Kovalevsky,  Lackington,  Leonora-Christina,  Lutfullah,  Maimon, 
Mill,  Moore,  D'Oberkirch,  Petrarch,  Platter,  Priestley,  Psalma- 
nazar,  Quinet,  Roland,  Sand,  Sophia,  Southey,  Spencer,  Stilling, 
Trenck,  Vamb^ry,  Vico. 

3.  ^V'EAK  MEMORIES 
Bunyan,  Darwin,  Gait,  Gosse,  Livingstone,  Locker-Lampson, 
Marmontel,  North,  Pasquier,  Pattison,  Rousseau,  Ruskin,  De 
Thou,  Trollope,  Wallace. 


APPENDIX  E 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  OF  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL  WRITINGS 

Religious  Studies  are  indicated  by  italics.  Where  possible, 
dates  are  of  birth  and  death.  In  a  few  cases,  they  are  of  birth,  and 
termination  of  the  autobiography .  In  one  or  two  cases,  there  is 
but  a  single  date,  used  merely  as  a  guide  to  the  epoch  of  the 
autobiographer. 

Sudanese      Abderrahman  Sadi  el  Timbucti  1590-1626 

Tarik  e  Sudan 
French  Abelard,  Pierre  1079-1142 

Letter  II 
Portuguese   Acosta,  Uriel  d'  ab.  1623 

Exemplar  \itae  humanae  [Eng.  trans.] 
French  Agrippa  d'Aubign^,  Theodore  1550-1630 

M^moires  de 
Italian  Aleandri,  Jerome,  Cardinal  1480-1542 

Journal  Autobiographique  [Imp.  Nat, 
H.  Omar] 
Italian  Alfieri,  Vittorio,  da  Asti  1749-1808 

Vita,  scritta  da  esso 


426 

APPENDIX 

American 

Alline,  Rev.  Henry 
Life  and  Journal  of 

1748-1784 

Danish 

Andersen,  Hans  Christian 
Das  Marchen  meines  Lebens 

1805-1875 

French 

d'Andilly,  Arnauld 
Memoires  de 

1589-1674 

English 

Anspach,  Margravine  of 

Memoirs,  written  by  Herself 

1750-1814 

French 

Arago,  Francois 

History  of  my  Youth 

1786- 

French 

d'Argenson,  Marquis  de 
Memoires,  et  Journal 

1694-1757 

French 

Arnauld,  I'abb^ 
Memoires  de 

1616-1698 

English 

Ashbridge,  Elizabeth 

Some  Account  of  the  Life  of 

1713-1755 

English 

Ashe,  Capt.  Thomas  [probably  spurious] 
Memoirs  of 

Roman 

Aurelius  Antoninus,  Marcus 
Meditations  of 

121-180 

Roman- 

Numidian 

Aurelius  Augustinv^ 

354-430 

Confessions  of  [Patristic  ed.] 
Arabic  Avicenna  [Ib'n  Sina]  980-1037 

Autobiography  [fragment].  Ed.  Carra  de 
Vaux 
Italian  d' Azeglio,  Massimo  1798-1866 

1  Miei  Ricordi 
English  Babbage,  Charles  1796-1864 

Passages  from  the  Life  of  a  Philosopher 
Hindu  Baber,  Muhammed,  Emperor  of  Hindu- 

stan 1483-1530 

Journal  of  [fragmentary].  Ed.  H.  Eliot 
English  Bain,  Alexander  1818-1903 

Autobiography 
Italian  Balbo,  Cesare  1789-1844 

La  Vita  di  [unfinished] 
German         Bareith,  Margravine  of  1709-1748 

Memoires  de  [in  French] 
French  Bashkirtsev,  Marie  1860-1884 

Journal  d'une  jeune  artiste 


APPENDIX 

427 

French 

Bassompierre,  Mar^chal  de 
Journal  de  ma  Vie 

1579-1646 

German 

Bauer,  Karoline 
Memoirs  of  [Eng.  trans.] 

1809- 

English 

Baxter,  Richard 
Life  and  Times  of  [Dr.  Calamy's  ed.] 

1696 

American 

Beers,  Clifford  W. 
A  Mind  that  found  itself 

1908 

Italian 

Bellarmino,  Roberto,  Cardinal 

1542-1621 

Vita  [German  trans,  by  Dollinger  and 

Reusch] 

French 

Beranger,  P.  J. 
Ma  Biographic 

1780-1857 

French 

Bernhardt,  Sarah 
Memoires  de  ma  Vie 

1836- 

French 

Berlioz,  HectoT 
Memoire  de 

1803-1869 

French 

Bernis,  de,  Cardinal 
Memoires  de 

1715-1794 

English 

Besant,  Annie 

1847 

An  Autobiography 

English 

Besant,  Walter 
An  Autobiography 

1836-1901 

English 

Bewick,  Thomas 
A  Memoir  of,  by  Himself 

1753-1823 

Scots 

Blair,  Robert 

Autobiography  of 

1593-1666 

French 

Blowitz,  Henri  de 
Memoire  de 

1825-1902 

English 

Bodley,  Sir  Thomas 
Autobiographical  Sketch 

1544-1609 

French 

Bonne val.  Count  [Osman  Bashaw] 

Memoirs  of  a  French  Adventurer,  Eng. 

1648 

Borulaski,  Joseph 

1752 

Life  of 

French 

Bouillon,  Due  de 

Memoires,  addressees  k  son  Fils 

1555-1623 

English 

Bownas,  Samuel 
An  Account  of 

1676-1753 

English 

Bramston,  Sir  John 

1611-1699 

Autobiography  of  [Camden Society  Pub.] 


428 
Danish 

English 

English 

Italian 

English 

English 

Scots 

French 

Roman 

English 

American 

English 

Italian 

Scots 

American 

Italian 

Russian 

Italian 

English 
Scots 


APPENDIX 

Brandos,  Georg  1908 

Reminiscences  of  my  Childhood  and 
Youth 
Bray,  Charles  1811-1884 

Phases  of  Opinion  and  Experience 
Brougham,  Henry,  Lord  1778-1868 

Life  and  Times  of 
Bruno,  Giordano,  da  Nola  1548-1600 

Constituto  di  [Domenico  Berti] 
Brydges,  Sir  Egerton  1762-1834 

Autobiography,  Times,  Opinions  of,  etc. 
Bunyan,  John  1628-1688  v 

Grace  abounding  to  the  Chief  of  Sinners 
Burns,  Robert  1759-1796 

Autobiography  (in  a  letter) 
Bussy-Rabutin,  Comte  de  1618-1693 

Memoires  de  Messire 
Caesar,  Caius- Julius  b,c.  100-44 

Commentary 
Calamy,  Dr.  Edmund  1671-1732   v' 

Historical  Account  of  my  own  Life 
Caldwell,  Charles,  M.  D.  1772-1853 

Autobiography 
Cappe,  Mrs.  Catherine  1744-1821 

Memoirs  of  the  Life  of 
Cardano,  Girolamo  1501-1576 

De  vita  propria  Liber  [ed.  Spons] 
Carlyle,  Alexander,  of  Inveresk  1722-1805 

Autobiography  of 
Cartwright,  Peter  1785-1856 

Autobiography 
Casanova,  Jacques  de  1751 

Memoires 
Catherine  II  1729-1796 

Memoires  de 
Cellini,  Benvenuto  1500-1571 

Vita  di,  scritta  da  lui  medesimo  [Eng. 
by  Symonds] 
Chalkley,  Thomas  1675-1739     >' 

Journal  of 
Chambers,  Robert  and  William  1800  \  -.r.^. 

Memoirs  of  1805/ 


APPENDIX 

429 

English 

Charke,  Charlotte 

Narrative  of  the  Life  of 

1759 

French 

Chastenay,  Victorine  de 
Memoires 

1771-1855 

French 

Chateaubriand  Vicomte  de 
Memoires  d'Outre-Tombe 

1768-1847 

French 

Cheverny,  Philippe  Hurault  de 
M^moire  de 

1528-1599 

Italian 

Chiabrera,  Gabriella 
Vita,  scritta  da  lui  medesimo 

1552-1637 

French 

Choisy,  I'abb^  de 
Memoires  de 

1644-1724 

English 

Cibber,  CoUey 
Apology  for  the  Life  of 

1671-1757 

French 

Clairon,  Mile.  Sophie 
Memoire  [fragment] 

1723-1802 

English 

Clarendon,  Lord,  Edward  Hyde 
An  Account  of  the  Life  of 

1608-1668 

American 

Clarke,  James  Freeman 
Autobiography 

1810-1888 

French 

Claude,  Monsieur 
Memoires 

ab.  1830 

English 

Cohhe,  Frances  Power 
The  Life  of,  by  Herself 

1822-1904 

English 

Colburn,  Zerah 
Life  of,  by  Himself 

1804-1840 

English 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor 
Biographical  Sketch  of 

1773-1834 

French 

CoUe,  Charles 
Journal 

1782 

French 

Comines,  Philippe  de 
Memoir  s  de 

1445-1509 

Italian 

Cornaro,  Lodovico 
Discorsi  della  vita  sobria 

1467-1566 

English 

Crisp,  Stephen 
A  Journal  of  the  Life  of 

1692 

English 

Crook,  John 
A  short  History  of  the  Life  of 

ab.  1654 

English 

Crozier,  John  Beattie 
My  Inner  Life 

ab.  1849 

Scots 

Cruden,  Alexander 

1701-1766 

Adventures  of  Alexander  the  Corrector 


430  APPENDIX 

English         Cumberland,  Richard  1732-1811 

Memoirs  of,  written  by  Himself 
French  Dangeau,  Journal  de  1721 

English  Darwin,  Charles  1809-1882 

Autobiography  [Sketch,  in  Life] 
Russian         Daschkaw,  Catherine  Romanova,  Prin- 
cess 1744-1810 

Memoirs  of  [English  trans.] 
English         Davies,  Richard  1635-1707     ^ 

An  account  of  the  Convincements, 
Services,  etc.,  of 
French  Descartes,  Reni  1596-1650 

Discours  de  la  M^thode 
English         d'Ewes,  Sir  Symonds  1602-1650    / 

Autobiography  of 
English         Digby,  Sir  Kenelm  1603-1665    V 

Private  Memoirs  of 
French  Dumas,  Alexandre  1802-1870 

Mes  Memoires 
English         Dunton,  John  1659-1735  . 

Life  and  Errors  of 
Italian  Dupr6,  Giovanni  1817-1884 

Autobiographical  Memoirs  of  [Eng. 
trans.] 
German         Ebers,  Georg  ab.  1896 

Life  of,  by  Himself 
English         Edmundson,  William  1627-1712  ., 

Journal  of  the  Life  of 
Dutch  Electress  of  Hanover,  Sophia,  1630-1680 

Memoirs  of  [edited  by  Leibnitz] 
English         Ellwood,  Thomas  1639-1713  v 

,  The  Life  of 
French  Epinay,  Mme.  d'  1725-1783 

Memoires  de 
Dutch  Erasmus,  Desiderius  1466-1536 

Compendium  Vitae  [in  a  letter] 
English  Fanshawe,  Lady  1625-1680   ,.' 

Memoirs  of,  by  Herself 
Spanish         Fervel,  C.  ab.  1683 

Carmen  de  Vita  sua 
American      Finney,  C.  G.  ab.  1792 

Life  of 


APPENDIX 


431 


English         Flamsteed,  John  1646-1719  '^ 

Account  of  the  Life  and  Labours  of 
Scots  Fletcher.  Mrs.  Eliza  1770-1858 

Autobiography  of 
French  Fleurange,  Seigneur  de,  Robert  de  la         1492-1536 

Mark  (Le  Jeune  Aventureux) 
American      Flynt,  Josiah  [Willard]  1908 

My  Life 
French  Forbin,  Comte  de  1677-1734 

Memoire  de 
English         Fox,  George  1624-1690  V 

A  Journal,  or  Historical  Account  of 
American      Franklin,  Benjamin  1706-1790 

Autobiography  of 
Scots  Fraser,  James,  of  Brae  1639 

Memoirs  of  the  Reverend  [Woodrow 
Soc] 
French  Frenilly,  Baron  de  1768-1848 

Souvenirs  de 
English         Frith,  W.  R.  ab.  1819 

My  Autobiography,  and  Reminiscences 
Scots  Gait,  John  1779-1834 

The  Autobiography  of 
French  Genlis,  Madame  de  1746-1825 

Memoires 
French  Georges,  Mile.  [Weymer]  1787-1867 

Memoires  inedits  de 
Arabic  al-Ghazzali  1056-1111 

Le  Preservatif  de  L'Erreur  [Barbier 
de  Meynard]  (Eng.  trans.) 
English         Gibbon,  Edward  1737-1794 

Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of 
English  Gifford.  William  1756-1826 

Memoir  of 
English         Gilbert,  Mrs.  [Ann  Taylor]  1782 

Autobiography  of 
Italian  Giusti,  Giuseppe  1809-1850 

Vita  di 
German         Goethe,  W.  v.  1749-1832 

Wahrheit  ii.  Dichtung 
Italian  Goldoni,  Carlo  1707-1793 

Vita  di 


432 

APPENDIX 

English 

Gosse,  Edmund 
Father  and  Son 

1908 

English 

Gough,  James 
Memoirs  of 

1712 

French 

Gournay,  de,  Marie  le  Jars 
Sa  Vie  par  Elle-meme ;  Apologia  de 

1566-1645 

French 

Gourville,  J.  H.  de 
M^moires 

1625-1703 

Italian 

Gozzi,  Carlo 
Memorie  inutile  .  .  .  publicata  per 
umilta 

1720-1806 

Scots 

Grant,  Elizabeth,  of  Rothiemurchus 
Memoirs  of  a  Highland  Lady 

1797-1825 

French 

Guibert  de  Nogent 
Vie  de  par  lui-meme 

1053-1124 

French 

Guyon,  Jeanne  de  la  Mothe 
Vie  de,  par  elle-meme 

1648-1717 

English 

Halkett,  Lady  Anne 

Autobiography  of  [Camden  Sec.  Pub.] 

1622-1699^ 

English 

Hamerton,  Philip  Gilbert 
Autobiography  of 

1834r-1894 

English 

Hare,  A.  J.  C. 
The  Story  of  my  Life 

1834-1903 

English 

Harris,  George 

Autobiography  and  Diary 

1809-1884 

English 

Haydon,  Benjamin  Robert 
The  Autobiography  of 

1786-1846 

English 

Hayes,  Alice 

A  Short  Account  of 

1657-1720. 

English 

Hayley,  Wm. 
Memoirs  of 

1745-1820 

Persian 

Hazin,  Muhammed  Ali  [Sheikh] 
The  Life  of,  by  Himself  [trans.] 

1692-1779 

German 

Heine,  Heinrich 
Memoirs  of 

1799-1856 

English 

Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Lord  Edward 
The  Autobiography  of 

1583-1648     J 

Scots 

Hogg,  James 

Memoir  of,  by  Himself 

1772-1835 

Norwegian 

Holberg,  Louis,  Baron 
The  Life  of  [trans.] 

1684-1754 

APPENDIX 

433 

English 

Holcroft,  Thomas 
Memoirs  of  the  Late 

1745-1809 

French 

Huet,  Pierre  Daniel 

Commentariis  de  rebus  ad  ilium  per- 
tinentibus 

1630-1721 

English 

Hull,  Henry 
Life  and  Journal 

1834 

English 

Hume,  David 

1711-1776 

My  own  Life 

English 

Hunt,  Leigh 
Autobiography  of 

1784-1859 

English 

Hunt,  W.  Holman 
Pre-Raphaelitism     and      the      Pre- 
RaphaeUtes 

ab.  1900 

English 

Hutchinson,  Lucy 

ab.  1620 

Life,  by  Herself  [fragment] 

English 

Hutt'on,  William 

1723-1815 

The  Life  of 

English 

Huxley,  Thomas  Henry 

1825-1895 

Autobiography  [fragment] 

English 

Ireland,  William  Henry 
Confessions  of 

1796 

Hindu 

Jahanghir 

Jahanghir-Nama  [Memoirs  of] 

French 

du  Jon,  Frangois  [Junius] 

Vita  Francisci  Junii,  ab  ipsomet  Junio 
scripta 

1545-1602 

Jewish 

Josephus,  Flavius 
Life  of,  by  Himself 

.     38-100 

Moorish 

Khaldoun,  Ib'n 

1332-1406 

Autobiography,  prefaced  to  the  Prole- 

gomena.  French  trans. 

German 

Kotzebue,  Augustus  von 

1761-1819 

Sketch  of  the  Life  and  Literary  Career  of 

Russian 

Kovalevsky,  Sonya 

1850-1891 

Recollections  of  Childhood 

Russian 

Kropotkin,  Peter 
Autobiography  of  a  Revolutionist 

1842-1900 

English 

Lackington,  James 

174&-1815 

Memoirs  of  the  first  Forty-five  Years 
of  the  Life  of 


434  APPENDIX 

French  Lamartine,  Alphonse  de  1789 

Les  Confidences 
French  La  Rochefoucauld,  Due  de  1613-1680 

M^moires 
French  Latude,  Henri  Masers  de  1724-1805 

Memoires 
German         Lavater  [trans.]  ab.  1759 

Secret  History  of  a  Self-Observer 
English  Layard,  Sir  Henry  1817-1894 

Memoirs 
French  Lejeune,  Baron  1775-1831 

Memoires 
English  Lilly,  William  1602-1681  y 

History  of  his  Life  and  Times,  wrote 
by  Himself 
Scots  Livingstone, Dr.  John  [WoodrowSoc.  Pub.]  1603-1672 

A  Brief  Historical  Account  of  the  Life  of 
English  Locker-Lampson,  Frederick  ab.  1821 

My  Confidences:  an  Autobiographical 
Sketch 
English         Lofft,  Sir  Capd  1812-1837 

Self -Formation ;  or  the  History  of,  etc. 
French  Lomenie  de  Brienne  (pere)  1594-1666 

Memoires 
French  Lomenie  de  Brienne  (fils)  1636-1688 

Memoires  in^dits  de 
Italian  Lorenzino  de'  Medici  1514-1548 

L'Apologia  di 
Hindu  Lutjullah  1802-1857 

Autobiography  [ed.  by  Eastwick] 
English  Macready,  William  C.  1793-1873 

Reminiscences 
French  Madame  (mere  du  Regent)  1652-1722 

Memoires 
Polish  Maimon,  Solomon  1754-1800 

Autobiography  [trans,  by  J.  C.  Murray] 
French  Mancini,  Hortense,  Duchesse  de  Mazarin   1647-1699 

Memoires  (see  (Euvres  de  St.  R^al) 
French  Mancini,  Marie,  Princesse  Colonna  1640-1678 

La  Verite  dans  son  Jour :  ou  L'Apologie 
French  Marbot,  Baron  de  1782-1854 

Memoires 


APPENDIX 

435 

French 

Marmontel 
Memoires  d'un  P6re 

1723-1799 

English 

Martineau,  Harriet 
Autobiography  of 

1802-1876 

English 

Mill,  John  Stuart 
Autobiography 

1806-1873 

French 

Monluc,  Blaise  de 
Les  Commentaires 

1500-1577 

Italian 

Montelupo,  Raffaello  da 
La  Vita  di  (fragments) 

1503-1570 

French 

Montpensier,  Anne  Marie-Louise  d'Or- 

leans,  duchesse  de 

1627-1693 

Memoires 

English 

Moore,  Thomas 

Memoirs  of  Myself,  and  Diary 

177^1*852 

French 

Morellet,  I'abbe 

Memoires  sur  le  18®  Si^cle 

1727-1819 

French 

Motteville,  Madame  de 
Memoires 

1621-1689 

French 

Musset,  Alfred  de 

Confession  d'un  Enfant  de  Siecle 

1810-1857 

English 

Newcastle,  Margaret,  Duchess  of 
A  true  relation  of  my  birth,  breeding 
and  life 

1645 

English 

Newman,  Francis                                  1805-ab.  1850 

Phases  of  Faith 

English 

Newman,  John  Henry  (Cardinal) 
Apologia  pro  Vita  sua 

1801-1890 

English 

Newton,  John 
Autobiography 

1725-1807 

English 

Newton,  Thomas  (Bishop) 

Some  Account  of  the  Author's  Life 

1705-1782 

English 

North,  Roger 
Autobiography  (unfinished) 

1653-1734 

Alsacian 

d'Oberkirch,  Mme. 
Memoires 

1754-1803 

English 

Oliphant,  Mrs.  M.  0.  W. 
Autobiography 

1827-1897 

Syrian 

Ousama  Ib'n  Mounkidh 

1095-1188 

"  Instruction    par    les    Exemples " 
French  trans,  by  H.  Derenbourg 
French  Paradin,  Guillaume  1558 

Histoire  de  Nostre  Temps 


-7^ 


436 

APPENDIX 

French 

Pasquier  (Chancelier) 
Histoire  de  mon  Temps 

1767-1862 

Roman- 

Patricius,  Saint 

398-469 

Briton 

Confession  of 

English 

Pattison,  Mark 
Memoirs  of 

1814-1884 

Franco- 

Paulinus  Pellceus 

376-460 

Roman 

Eucharisticon  de  Vita  sua 

English 

Pearson,  Jane 

Sketches  of  the  Life  of 

1734-1816 

German 

Pellican,  Dr.  Conrad 

Chronicon  Vitae  ipsius,  ab  ipso  con- 
scriptum 

1478-1556 

Italian 

Petrarca,  Francesco 
La  Vita  di  [in  A.  d'Ancona's  Raccolta] 

1304-1374 

German 

Platter,  Thomas 
Autobiography 

1499-1573 

American 

Priestley,  Dr.  Joseph 

1733-1805 

Memoirs 

Scots 

Pringle,  Walter,  of  Greenknow 

1666 

Memoirs  [Woodrow  Soc.  Pub.] 

Roman- 

Prudentius,  Aurelius  Clemens 

348-405 

Spanish 

Prefatio 

Psalmanazar,  George 

1679-1763 

Memoirs  of  xxx 

English 

de  Quincey,  Thomas 

Autobiographic   Sketches,   and   Con- 
fessions, etc. 

-1859 

French 

Quinet,  Edgar 
Histoire  de  Mes  Idees 

1803-1875 

French 

Raguse,  due  de  (Marechal  Marmont) 

1774-1857 

M^moires 

French 

Renan,  Ernest 

Souvenirs  d'Enfance  et  de  Jeunesse 

1823-1892 

English 

Reresby,  Sir  John 
The  Memoirs  of 

1634-1689 

French 

de  Retz,  Cardinal 
Memoires 

1614-1679 

German 

Richter,  Jean  Paul 
Truth  from  my  own  Life 

1763-1823 

Italian 

Ristori,  Adelaide 
Autobiography  [Eng.  trans.] 

1824-1906 

APPENDIX 

437 

English 

Roberts,  Samuel 
Autobiography 

1763-1848 

English 

Robinson,  Mary  "Perdita" 
Memoirs  of  the  late,  by  Herself 

1758-1800 

French 

Roland,  J.  M.  Phlipon,  Comtesse  de 
Vie  Priv^,  ^crite  par  EUe-meme 

1754-1793 

English 

Romilly,  Sir  Samuel 
Memoirs  of  the  Life  of 

1757-1818 

English 

Rossetti,  William  Michael 
Some  Reminiscences  of 

1829 

French 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques 
Les  Confessions 

1712-1778 

English 

Ruskin,  John 

Praeterita :  Outlines  of  my  Past  Life 

1819-1892 

English 

Rutty,  Dr.  John 
Spiritual  Diary  of 

1775 

French 

Saint-Simon,  Due  de 
Memoires 

1675-1755 

Italian 

Salimhene,  Fra,  di  Adamo 

1221-1288 

Chronicle  of  [In  G.  G.  Coulton's  "  From 

St.  Francis  to  Dante"] 

Italian 

Salvini,  Tommaso 
Autobiografia 

1829 

French 

Sand,  George 

Histoire  de  ma  Vie 

1804-1876 

English 

Sansom,  Oliver 
The  Life  of 

1636-1710 

French 

Savoie,  Louise  de 
Journal  (fragment) 

147&-1532 

English 

Schimmelpenninck,  Mary- Anne 
Autobiography 

1778-1856 

American 

Scott,  Job 
Life,  Travels  and  Gospel  Labours  of 

1751-1793 

Scots 

Scott,  Sir  Walter 
Autobiography,  and  General  Prefaces 
[Lockhart] 

1770-1832 

English 

Scott,  William  Bell 

Autobiographical  Notes  of 

1811-1890 

English 

Shaftesbury,  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper, 

Earl  of 

1621-1683 

Autobiographical  Fragment 

English 

Smiles,  Samuel 
Autobiography 

1812-1904 

438 

APPENDIX 

Italian 

Sorelli,  Guido 

My  Confessions  [Eng.  trans.] 

1821 

English 

Southey,  Robert 
Autobiographical  Recollections 

1784-1843 

English 

Spencer,  Herbert 
An  Autobiography 

1820-1904 

German 

Spohr,  Ludwig 
Autobiography 

1784-1859 

French 

Staal-Delaunay,  Madame  de 
M^moires 

1695-1750 

German 

Stilling,  J.  Heinrich 
Autobiography  of 

1740-1817 

English 

Stirredge,  Elizabeth 
Life  of 

1634-1706  / 

French 

Sully,  Due  de 

1559-1641 

Les  Economies  Royales  et  les  Servitudes 

Loyales 

German 

Suso,  Heinrich  [von  Berg] 

1300-1365 

Life  of  the  Blessed  .  .  .  (Eng.  Knox) 

English 

Symonds,  John  Addington 
Autobiography 

1840-1893 

French 

Talleyrand,  Prince  de 
M^moires 

1754-1838 

English 

Taswell,  William  D.  D. 

Autobiography  (Camden  Soc.  Pub.) 

1652    .■ 

English 

Taylor,  Col.  Meadows 
Story  of  my  Life 

1808-1876 

Spanish 

Teresa,  Santa  [French  trans.] 
Viede 

1515-1582 

French 

Thou,  J.  A.  de 

M^moires  de  la  Vie 

1553-1617 

French 

Tilly,  Alexandre 
M6moires 

1764-1815 

Hindu 

Timtir  (Eliot :  Eng.  trans.) 

1336-1407 

Mulfusat-Timtjry :       Autobiographical 

Memoirs  of 

Russian 

Tolstoi,  Leon 

1828 

Ma  Confession  [Fr.  and  Eng.]  and  Mes 

M^moires 

English 

Tone,  Theobald  Wolfe 

1763-1798 

Life,  by  Himself 

APPENDIX 


439 


German         Trenck,  Fr^d^ric  de  1726-1789 

L'Histoire  de  Mes  Malheurs  (in  French) 
English         Trollope,  Anthony  1815-1882 

An  Autobiography- 
English         Tusser,  Thomas  1515-1580 

The  Author's  Life 
Danish  Ulfeldt,  Leonora  Christina,  of  Denmark     1621-1698 

Autobiography  and  Memoir  [Eng.  trans.] 
French  Valois,  Marguerite  de  1553-1615 

M^moire 
Hungarian    Vambery,  Arminius  1832 

Autobiography 
Italian  Vasari,  Giorgio  1512-1574 

Vita  di  (nelle  Vite  di  Pittori) 
English  Vennar,  Richard  ab.  1571-1617 

An  Apology 
French  Vidocq,  Eugene  Frangois  1775-1829 

Memoires 
Italian  Vied,  Gianbattista  1678-1743 

Vita,  scritta  da  Lui  medesimo 
French  Villeroy,  Nicolas deXeufville,  Seigneur  de  1543-1617 

Memoires  d'Estat. 
Italian  Viterbi,  Luc- Antonio  1769-1821 

Diary  of  [Eng.  in  Waldie  Library ,  vol .  i v] 
English  Wallace,  Alfred  Russel  1823-1905 

My  Life 
English  Whiston,  William  1667-1749 

Memoirs 
English  White,  Joseph  Blanco  '1775^1841 

Autobiography,  in  two  parts 
English  White-field,  George  1714-1770 

A  Short  Account  of  God's  Dealings  with 
English         Wolseley,  Viscount  1833-1904 

The  Story  of  a  Soldier's  Life 
American      Woolman,  John  1720-1772 

Journal 
English  Wordsworth,  William  1770-1850 

The  Prelude 
English  Young,  Arthur  1741-1820 

Autobiography,  Diary,  etc. 


INDEX 


Abderrahman  Sadi  el  Timbucti,  356. 

Abeba,  33. 

Ab^lard,  P.,  305,  332,  333,  365. 

Ability,  people  of,  52,  53. 

d'Acosta,  Uriel,  260,  277,  278,  332, 333. 

Actors'  Autobiographies,  195,  368. 

Agnosticism  in  nineteenth  century- 
group,  364. 

Agnostics,  women  as,  350. 

"  Agricola  "  of  Tacitus,  40. 

Agrippa  d'Aubign^,  T.,  49,  123,  219, 
263,  271,  297,  343,  372,  389. 

Aims,  definite,  chapter  xviii,  369. 

Albany,  Louise  of,  295,  296. 

Aleandri,  Jerome.  See  Bibliography. 

Alfieri,  V.,  4,  24,  48,  49,  54, 81, 162,  185, 
194,  198,  200,  204,  214,  217,  219,  257, 
284,  286,  290,  294-297,  343,  344,  352, 
363,  370,  371,  376,  386,  392,  395,  402. 

Algebraists,  105. 

Alline,  Henry,  219,  251,  275,  367. 

Ambitions,  114. 

Ameni,  33. 

American  autobiography,  208-211. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  12. 

Ancient  literature,  wholly  objectire, 
31. 

Ancona,  A.  d',  90,  198,  342. 

Andersen,  H.  C,  49,  68,  69,  207,  208, 
340. 

d'Andilly,  A.  See  Bibliography. 

Anspach,  Margravine  of,  28, 334,  344. 

Antoninus,  Marcus  Aurelius,  39,  40, 
72,  75,  76,  91,  351. 

Apologetic  tone  in  autobiography, 
331  ff. 

Apologies,  the  great,  331,  334. 

Arabic  autobiographies,  354-363. 

Arago,  F.    See  Bibliography. 

Archetjrpes,  the  three,  742. 

d'Argenson,  Due,  22,  23,  136. 

Aristotle,  83,  338,  355. 

Arnauld,  Abb6.   See  Bibliography. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  38,  325. 

d'Artagnan,  forged  memoir,  20. 
J,/  Artists  as  autobiographers,  171. 


Ashbridge,  Elizabeth,  235,  275. 

Ashe,  Thomas,  20. 

Ashmole,  E. ,  75. 

Attitudes  toward  nature,  202, 204, 205, 

313. 
Audience,  the  world  as  an,  378. 
Audience  of  posterity,  60,  115. 
Auditory  phenomena  in  conversion, 

274,  275. 
Augustinus,  Aurelius,  4, 11,  14,  30,36, 

74,  76,  80,  81,  106,  107,  120,  138-140, 

143,  150,  212,  213,  228,  232,  233,  237, 

240,  241,  243,  250,  264,  275,  305,  313, 

336,  367,  373,  401. 
Augustus,  34,  35,  91. 
Aurolian,  35. 
Ausonius,  41. 

Autobiographers,  classic,  197. 
Autobiographical  groups,  chapter  x. 
Autobiographical  intention,  chapter 

ii,  61,  130, 145,  170,  197,  253,  406. 
Autobiography  and  fiction,  chapter 

ix  ;  in  form  of  fiction,  17. 
Avicenna,  338,  355,  .365,  372. 
d'Azeglio,  M.,  217,  395. 

Babbage,  Charles,  150,  366,  373,  399. 

Baber,  22,  355,  356,  386. 

Bacon,  Francis,  155. 

Bain,  Alexander,  364,  373;  study  of 

character,  217. 
Balbo,  Cesare,  388. 
Balzac,  Honors  de,  149,  155,  166,  169. 
Bareith,  Margravine  of,  208,  225,  256, 

292,  318,  388. 
Barnum,  P.  T.,  14. 
Barras,  136. 
Barri,  Madame  du,  15. 
Bartoli,  Italian  literature,  90. 
Bashkirtsev,  Marie,  29,  219,  293,  340. 
Bassompierre,  134,  138,  140,  146,  159, 

161,  162,  171,  204,  205,  280,  305,  318, 

368. 
Baudelaire,  379. 
Bauer,  K.,  68,  195,208. 
Baxter,  Richard,  18, 141. 


442 


INDEX 


Bayle,  Pierre,  "  Dictionnaire  Cri- 
tique," 84,  93,  111,  115,  1'42. 

Beaumarchais,  P.  A.  C.  de,  21. 

Beers,  C.  W.,  276. 

Bellarmin,  142,  219,  248,  249,  336,  365, 
372. 

Bellay,  M.  du,  133. 

Beranger,  B.  J.,  339,  363,  385,  392. 

Berlioz,  H.,  279,  325,  393. 

Bernhardt,  Sarah,  195,  293,  368. 

Bernis,  Cardinal  de,  215,  305. 

Besant,  Annie,  49,  254,  261,  363. 

Besant,  Walter.    See  Bibliography. 

Bewick,  T.,  298. 

Bible,  the,  32. 

Bidder,  120. 

Biography  of  autobiographers,  54. 

Birrell,  Augustin,  45. 

Birs-Nirarud  inscription,  34,  37. 

Bizarreries,  10,  352,  353,  371. 

Blair,  Robert,  77,  216,  219,  250,  251, 
267,  269,  299,  367,  406. 

Blavatsky,  Madame,  261,  353. 

Blitz,  Signer,  14. 

Blowitz,  Henri,  342. 

Bodley,  T.,365,  389. 

Boer,'T.  J.  de,  "  Philosophy  in  Is- 
lam," 

Bois,  du,  Cardinal,  15. 

Boissier,  Gaston,  38,  61,  78,  135,  400. 

Bonneval,  Count.  See  Bibliography. 

Borulaski,  J.     See  Bibliography. 

Bossuet,  378  ;  sermon  on  death  of 
Madame,  266. 

Boswell's  "  Johnson,"  54,  75. 

Bouillon,  Due  de,  318. 

Bourrienne,  22. 

Bownas,  S.,  235,  252. 

Bramston,  Sir  J.    See  Bibliography. 

Brandes,  G.,  219,  221,  263,  312,  368. 

Bray,  Billy,  232. 

Bray,  Charles,  385. 

Brienne,  Comte  L.  de,  261. 

Brougham,  Lord,  67,  73,  215,  219,  270, 
271,  365,  383. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  82. 

Browning,  Robert,  "  Cleon,"  408. 

Bruno,  Giordano,  331,  332,  334,  367, 
378. 

Bruyfere,  La,  311. 

Brvdges,  Sir  Egerton,  48,  50,  206,  255, 
279,  324,  325,  344,  386,  393,  402,  403. 

Buddha,  33. 


Bunyan,  J.,  123,  237,  252,  284,  287,  367. 
Burnet,  Bishop,  22. 
Burney,  Fanny,  58,  319,  320. 
Burns,  Robert,  28,  210,  364. 
Burton,  Richard,  82,  230. 
Bussy-Rabutin,  50,  156,  160,  162,  270, 

305,  318,  343. 
Byron,  Lord,  17,  162,  378,  382. 

Caesar,  Caius  Julius,  35,  74-76,  81,  91, 
130,  136,  138,  139,  140. 

Cagliostro,  72. 

Calamy,  Dr.  E.,  18,  141,  158,  160,  263, 
274,  300. 

CaldweU,  Charles,  70. 

Campbell,  John,  270,  388. 

CandoUe,  A.  de,  9, 95. 

Canler,  149. 

Cantu,  Cesare,  on  Italian  Literature, 
90. 

Capel-Lofft,  221,  254,  263. 

Cappe,  Mrs.  C.    See  Bibliography. 

Cardan,  Fazio,  94  ff . 

Cardan,  J.,  19,  24,  30,  48,  65,  66,  74,  79, 
80,  85,  140-143,  145,  174,  177,  181,  185, 
198,  200,  205,  206,  214-216,  218,  224, 
254,  258,  273-275,  282-284,  286,  313, 
317,  334,  335,  337,  338,  343,  353,  355, 
361,  369,  370,  373,  376,  378,  380,  383, 
387,  390,  394,  396,  399,  402,  406. 

Carlyle,  Alexander,  217. 

Carrer,  L.,  198. 

Cartwright,  Peter,  233,  252,  367. 

Casanova,  J.,  15, 155,  162,  214. 

Casaubon,  177. 

Cassanate,  M.,  116. 

Catalogue  raisonn^,  need  of  a,  5. 

Catherine  II,  22,  65,  66,  208,  256,  285, 
290,  291,  311,  343,  348,  365,  370,  372, 
383,  395. 

Catulus,  Q.  L.,  41, 130. 

Cavour,  379. 

Cellini,  Benvenuto,  5, 25,  54,  65,  66, 72, 
79, 121, 142,  171, 174, 177,  181,  194, 198, 
200, 206,  214, 216, 250, 257, 267, 272,  277, 
294, 316, 317, 335, 343, 364,  376, 383, 399, 
406. 

Chalkley,  Thomas,  235,  252. 

Chambers,  Robert  and  William,  219, 
395. 

Chandler,  F.  W.,  "  Literature  of 
Roguery,"  71,  149. 

Changes  in  faith,  259-261. 


INDEX 


443 


Character,  genius  and,  394. 
Characteristics    of    Eastern    Auto- 
biography, 354-363;  of  English,  205, 

207. 
Characteristics  of  French,  200-205;  of 

German,  68, 207-208;  of  Italian,  198, 

205. 
Charke,  Charlotte,  28,  195. 
Chastenay,  Yictorine  de,  324, 348, 389. 
Chateaubriand,  Vicomte  de,  11,  216, 

255,  260,  285,  286,  303,  304,  315,  326, 

340. 
Chevemy,  P.  H.  de,  22. 
Chiabrera,  G.,  198. 
Child-Study,  examples  to  aid,  219. 
Choisy,  1  'abb6  de,  15,  28,  72. 
Chopin,  F.,  53,  6S. 
Christianity  and  autobiography,  31, 

38,  405. 
Chroniclers,  mediaeval,  14,  206. 
Cibber,  Colley,  49,  309,  319,  344,  368, 

403. 
Cicero,  59,  349. 

City,  the,  in  autobiography,  203,  205. 
Clairon,  Mile.,  195,  279,  324,  368. 
Clarendon,  Lord,  384,  403. 
Clarke,  J.  F.,  263. 
Classification  of  autobiographies,  28, 

75,  235. 
Claude,  M.,  149,  151. 
Claudius,  35. 
Cleveland,  Grover,  240. 
Cobbe,  F.  P.,  293,  315,  343,  348. 
Colbum,  Zerah,  120,  219. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  365,  368. 
Colle,  C,  178. 
Collier,  J,  Payne,  206. 
Comines,  Philippe  de,  22. 
Commentaries,  36. 
Commodion,  41,  374. 
Commonplace   autobiographies,  14, 

206. 
Comparison  of  autobiographies,  15, 

205,  253,  264. 
Comte,  A.,  350,  398. 
Confession,  the  religious,  144,   193, 

234,  265,  366,  407. 
Confucius,  33. 

Consciousness  of  self,  first,  220-222. 
Conversation,  love  of,  178. 
Conversion,  233, 238, 250, 253, 366;  non- 
religious,  254. 
CorbineUi,  158,  159,  204. 


Comaro,  Lodovlco,  142. 177, 181. 

Correctives  to  mood  in  autobiogra- 
phy, 63,  64. 

Correspondence  and  autobiogra- 
phies, chapter  v. 

Corvinus,  V.  M.,  41. 

Country,  the,  in  autobiography,  203. 

Courage,  131. 

Courteault,  B.,  on  Monluc,  132,  133. 

Cousin,  Victor,  9. 

Crisp,  Stephen,  235,  252,  299. 

Crook,  John,  235,  237,  252,  284,  286. 

Crozier,  J.  B.,  71. 

Cruden,  Alexander.  See  Bibliogra- 
phy. 

Cumberland,  Richard,  340,  343. 

Cuvier,  382. 

Daemon,   tutelary,  93,  120,  126,  273, 

373. 
"  Dangeau,  Journal  de,"  135. 
Dante,  87,  92,  233. 
Darwin,  Charles,  48,  50,  257,  335,  364, 

371,  379.  380,  383,  390. 
Darwin,  Erasmus,  233. 
Daschkaw,  Princess,  256,  285,  365. 
Dates    by  autobiographers,  45,  67, 

227. 
Da  vies,  Richard,  235,  237,  252. 
Du  Deffand,  Madame,  59. 
Defoe,  148. 

De  Quincey,  T.,  48,  402. 
Descartes,  R6n^,  48,  120, 360,  361,  363, 

365,  373,  388,  393. 
Diaries,  chapter  v,  53-59. 
Dickens,  C,  149,  16i. 
Digby,  SirKenelm,  48,  198,  308,384. 
Dill,  S.,  38. 

"  Doing,  apart  from  feeling,"  33, 198. 
Doyle,  Conan,  149. 
Dreams,  Cardan's,  94. 
Dumas,  Alexandre,  154,  155, 151,  216, 

218,  323,  3i0,  344,  353,  372. 
Dumouriez,  22. 
Dunton,  John,  252. 
Dupr^,  G.,  171,  297,  309,  364. 

Eastern  autobiographies,  33, 259, 354^ 

363. 
Ebers,  G.,  66,  208. 
Eccentricities   in   autobiographers, 

352,  353,  397. 
Eccleaiasteg,  382. 


444 


INDEX 


Edgeworth,  Dr.  R.,  298,  326,  327,  353. 

Editors  of  autobiographies,  18. 

Edmundson,  William,  235. 

Education,  various  kinds  of,  369; 
theories  of,  378. 

"Ego  sum,"  73. 

"  Egotists,  four  classes  of,"  81. 

Egyptian  autobiographies,  33. 

Eighteenth  century  autobiographies, 
26  ;  group  in  Italy,  184,  258. 

Electress  of  Hanover,  Sophia,  177, 
203,  208,  292,  313,  321. 

Eliot,  George,  44,  281,282;  influenced 
by  Rousseau,  143. 

Elizabeth,  Empress  of  Russia,  291. 

Ellwood,  Thomas,  235,  252. 

Emotion  in  autobiography,  143,  144, 
199,  231,  234,  309,  310,  402. 

Emperors,  Mogul,  22,  273,  355,  356; 
Roman,  35. 

Enclos,  Ninon  de  1',  15. 

English  autobiographies,  181,  184, 
205,  207. 

d'Epinay,  Madame,  17, 61  ff.,  179,  180, 
301. 

Era,  Christian,  31. 

Erasmus,  48,  168,  208,  367,  372. 

Esdras,  Book  of,  36. 

Espinasse,  Mile,  de  1',  162. 

Estoile,  Pierre  de  1',  22. 

Ethical  deficiencies  in  certain  auto- 
biographers,  65,  71,  77,  78,  106,  149, 
210,  262. 

Ette.  Mile,  d',  180. 

"  Eucharisticos  de  Vita  Sua,"  41. 

Evangelists,  the  street,  232. 

Evelyn,  John,  58,  205. 

d'E\yes,  Sir  Symons,  142,  205,  217, 
301-303,  384. 

Excitement,  religious,  229. 

Explanations,  far-fetched,  379;  sim- 
ple, 267,  380. 

Facts,  necessity  of  giving  all  tha, 

397. 
Fanshawe,  Lady,  269,  309. 
Farabi,  El,  338. 
Faublas,  15. 

Fear  in  autobiography,  270,  271. 
«'  Feeling  apart  from  doing,"  33, 198. 
Ferrari,  Lodovico,  105. 
Fervel,  C,  374. 
Feuillade,  la,  20. 


Fichte,  J.  G.,  27. 

Fiction,  autobiography  and,  chapter 
ix. 

Field  of  autobiography,  the  whole, 
12,  377. 

Finney,  C.  G.    See  Bibliography. 

Fior,  Antonio  Maria,  105. 

Flamsteed,  John,  142,  367,  370,  373, 
387. 

Flaubert,  155. 

Fletcher,  E.,  353. 

Fleurange,  Seigneur  de,  17. 

Flynt,  Josiah,  217. 

Fontaine,  J.  B.  la,  20. 

Forbin,  Comte  de.  See  Bibliography. 

"  Force  of  personal  religious  excite- 
ment," 137,  138. 

Ford,  John,  282. 

Forgery,  of  m6moires,  19,  20,  201. 

Fosco,  Count,  192. 

Fouch^,  22. 

Fouill^e,  A.,  202,  345,  388,  395,  398, 
399. 

Fouquet,  149. 

Fox,  G.,  49,  54,  66,  138,  207,  219,  221, 
235,  236,  240,  275,  299,  367. 

Francanzano,  Messer,  317. 

Francoeuil,  Dupin  de,  179, 180,  301. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  30,  48,  65,  66, 
149,  194,  200,  209-211,  255,  257,  305, 
337,  376,  392. 

Eraser,  James,  of  Brae,  252. 

Freethinker,  serenity  of  the,  350. 

Freethought,  conversion  to,  254. 

Frederick  the  great,  152. 

French  autobiographies,  178  flf.,  182, 
183,  200 ff.,  205. 

Fr^nilly,  Baron  de,  353,  384. 

Fresne,  la  marquise  de,  20. 

Friendliness  of  the  autobiography, 
4,  6,  16. 

Frith,  W.  R.    See  Bibliography. 

Fronde,  the,  322. 

Fufidius,  L.,  41. 

Funck-Brentano,  la  mort  de  Ma- 
dame, 266. 

Furius,  A.,  41. 

Gaboriau,  E.,  149,  150. 
Galen,  88,  119. 
Galileo,  85,  185,  378. 
Gait,  John,  49,  214,  364. 
Galton,  Francis,  9,  231,  234,  371. 


INDEX 


445 


Gamett,  Richard,  on  Italian  liter- 
ature, 90. 

General  surrey  of  the  field  of  auto- 
biography, 15 

Generalizers,  hasty,  381. 

Genius  and  character,  treatment  of, 
378;  eccentricities  of,  397;  normal- 
ity of,  377,  398. 

Genlis,  Madame  de,  348,  a89. 

Georges,  3IademoiselJe,  293,  368. 

German  autobiography,  G3,  207,  208. 

al-Ghazzali.  194,  259,  277,  332,  333,356, 
359,  3G0,  363,  365,  373,  374,  393. 

Ghosts  seen  by  autobiographers,  269. 

Gibbon's  autobiography,  48,  49,  54, 
65,  66,  81,  135,  146,  207,  216,  261,  304, 
337,  388. 

Gibbon,  "  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Ro- 
man Empire,"  31,  38,  135,  363. 

GifEord,  "William.   See  Bibliography. 

Gilbert,  Ann  T.,  219,  272,  315. 

Gilman,  Mrs.  Bradley,  on  Teresa,  242. 

Giusti,  Giuseppe,  198,  200,  219,  263, 
282,  370.  .3.87,  395. 

Goethe,  43,  59,  163,  214,  216,  219,  265, 
288,  305,  363,  373,  378,  382,  391,  392, 
395,  398,  401;  "  Wahrheitund  Dich- 
tung,"  68,  69,  124,  199,  207,  289,  348, 
397. 

Goldoni,  C,  54,  79,  162-167,  193,  214, 
217,  258,  294,  301,  313,  339,  364,  372, 
376. 

Gosse,  Edmund,  219-221,  258,  272,  3G7. 

Go  ugh,  J..  235. 

Gournay,  Mademoiselle  le  Jars  de. 
See  Bibliography. 

Gourville,  J.  H.  de,  319,  322,  323,  342. 

Gozzi.  C,  5.  50,  162,  165-167,  258,  314, 
318,  343,  376,  384. 

Grant,  Elizabeth,  216. 

Grasset.  Joseph,  "  Le  Demi-fou,"  88, 
230,  253,  392,  397. 

Greek  literature,  no  autobiography 
in,  32. 

Greville's  Diary,  58. 

Grignan,  Madame  de,  204. 

Grouchy,  22. 

Grouping  of  autobiographies,  120, 
235,  364. 

Groups,  characteristics  of,  signifi- 
cance of,  173,  406,  407. 

Guibert  de  Nogent,  53,  77,  81, 123, 138, 
219,  241,  244,  246,  248,  249,  271,  367. 


I  Guizot,  collection  of  memoirs,  67,136. 
I  Gummere,  F.  B.,  32,  316. 
Guyon,  J.  de  la  Mothe,  77,  138,  139, 
177,  219,  239,  243,  249,  256,  275.  367. 

Hadrian,  35. 

Haggard,  R.,  156. 

Halkett,  Lady  Anne,  308. 

Hall,  G.  Stanley,  100,  223,  283. 

Hallam,  "  Literature  in  Europe,"  84. 

Hallucinations,  229,  230,  242;  audi- 
tory, 243,  274,  275;  visual,  243,  271, 
272,  275,  276. 

Hamerton,  P.  G.,  123,  219,309,363,381, 
382. 

Hamilton,  Archbishop,  118,  125. 

Happiness  in  study,  333,  391. 

Hare,  A.  J.  C,  216,  271,  353. 

Harris,  George.    See  Bibliography. 

Haydon,  B.  R.,  51,  63,  64,  171,  254,  258, 
276,  277,  286,  364,  333. 

Hayes,  Alice,  235,  252. 

Hayley,  William,  219,  327. 

Hazin'  Ali,  259,  264,  309,  317,  a56-359, 
363,  365,  383. 

Health  of  autobiographers,  252,  267. 

Hebrew  literature,  memoirs,  36. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  219,  272,  343,  368, 
387,  395. 

Helvetius,  365. 

Henri  lY  group,  182. 

Herbert  of  Cherbury,  18, 142, 207, 214- 
216,  218,  274,  275,  303,  365,  370,  372, 
384,  393. 

Herodotus,  32. 

Hindu  autobiographies,  52. 

Hippocrates,  88. 

Historians  as  autobiographers,  193. 

Historical  memoirs,  22,  35,  135,  194. 

History  of  autobiography,  chapter 
iii. 

Hodgkin,  "Italy,  and  Her  Invad- 
ers," 40. 

Hogg,  James,  23. 

Holberg,  Louis,  68,  207,  324,  340,  353, 
387. 

Holcroft,  T.,  216. 

Howells,  VT.  D.,  IS. 

Huet,  P.  D.,  75,  77,  82,  138,  141,  263, 
365,  370,  372,  383,  387. 

H«go,  Victor,  140,  157. 

Hull,  Henry,  235. 

Humboldt,  Alexander,  381,  382. 


446 


INDEX 


Hume,  David,  81,  289,  336,  363. 
Humor,  varieties  of,  chapter  xvi, 

166. 
Hunt,  Leigh,  272,  277,  368,  370,  388. 
Hunt,  W.  H.     See  liihliography. 
Hutchinson, Lucy.  See  Bibliography. 
Hutton,  William,  214,  219,  309. 
Huxley,  T.  H.,  315,  326,  364. 
Hysteria,  epidemics  of,  267. 

Ideal  autobiography,  the,  197. 

niness  of  autobiographers,  99,  249, 
251,  276,  280. 

Imitation  in  autobiography,  140,  238. 

Impostors,  71,  72. 

Impotency,  dread  of,  by  Cardan,  100, 
396. 

Individualism  in  literature,  9,  177. 

Inductions,  psychological,  361. 

Influence  of  autobiographers  on  one 
another,  74,  77,  79,  140 

Influence  of  autobiography,  76. 

Influence  of  Christianity  on  subjec- 
tivity, 38. 

Insanity  and  genius,  393,  394;  insan- 
ity in  autobiography,  84,  276. 

Inscriptions,  ancient,  34  ff. 

Insincerity,  45. 

Intellectual  life,  381-391,  407. 

Intention,  the  autobiographical,  61, 
130,  145,  170,  197,  253,  406. 

Introspection,  26,  27,  30,  404,  408. 

Ireland,  William  H.,  49,  344. 

Italian  autobiography,  181,  183,  184, 
198,  200,  205. 

Italy,  167. 

"  Italy  and  Her  Invaders,"  40. 

Jahanghir,  22,  356. 
James,  Henry,  62. 
James,   William,  46,  92,  93,  126,  147, 

222,  230,  232,  234,  244,  254,  255. 
Jesus  Christ,  autobiography  of,  21. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  100,  128,  378,  395, 

403. 
Joinville,  de,  22. 
Jokes,  practical,  314,  316,  323. 
Jon,  du  (Junius,  F.). 
Jonson,  Ben,  403. 
Josephus,  36  fE.,  81,  274,  301. 
Journalists,  60,  61. 
Journals,  58,  59. 
Joy,  340. 


Kar^nine,    Wladimlr,    on    George 

Sand,  55 
Kempis,  Thomas  k,  39,  79. 
Kepler,  119. 

Khaldoun,  Ib'n,  356,  384. 
Kings,  autobiographies  of,  34. 
Kotzebue,  A.  von,  68,  207,  208,  298. 
Kovalevsky,  Sonia,  216,  218,  222,  270, 

348,  364,  390. 
Kropotkin,  P.,  152. 

Lacenaire,  151. 

Lackington,  J.,  260,  344. 

Lamartine,  A.  de,  216,  255,  326. 

Lamotte-Yalois,  Madame,  15. 

Lang,  Andrew,  "  The  Making  of  Re- 
ligion," 44. 

La  Rochefoucauld,  133,  322. 

Latude,  H.  M.  de,  49,  151,  152,  153- 
155. 

Lauzun,  A.  N.  de,  15,  307,  308. 

Lavalette,  22. 

Lavater,  60,  68,  207. 

Law  of  the  subjective  tendency,  185, 
406. 

Lawyers  as  autobiographers,  301. 

Layard,  Sir  H.    See  Bibliography. 

Le  Bon,  Gustave,  2S8;  Psych,  des 
Foules,  174,  175,  181,  Psych,  des 
Peuples,  235. 

Lecoq,  Gaboriau's,  149,  150. 

Lee,  Vernon,  163,  165,  166,  185,  296. 

Lejeune,  Baron,  388. 

Lelut,  A.,  87,  93,  396. 

Leopardi,  198. 

Leroux,  Italian  literature,  90. 

Lesage,  379. 

Letters  and  autobiography,  chap- 
ter v. 

"  Letting  himself  go,"  60. 

Lewes,  George,  381. 

Lilly,  William,  75,  272. 

Livingstone,  J.,  252,  299. 

Locker-Lampson,  F.,  272. 

Lombroso,  Cesare,  8,  48,  87,  90,  93, 
379,  394,  396. 

Lom^nie  de  Brienne,  p^re,  261 ;  fils, 
261. 

London,  the,  of  early  autobiogra- 
phers, 205. 

Lorenzino  de'  Medici,  198,  332,  333. 

Louis  XIY  group,  22,  182. 

Louis  XV  group,  179,  180,  182, 183. 


INDEX 


447 


Love  affairs,  296,  309. 
Lucretius  on  Human  Life,  33. 
Lutfullah,  359. 
"Lymphatics,"  388. 

Macready,  William,  195,  263,  339,  368. 
Madame     Henriette     d'Angleterre, 

266. 
Madame,  rcfere  du  Regent,  204,  256, 

291,  319. 

Maimon,  Solomon,  194,  216,  218,  277, 

285,  286,  301,  326,  365,  371,  372,  383. 
Mancini,  Hortense,  177,  204,  256,  291, 

292,  316. 

Mancini,  Marie,  156,  177,  204,  256,  279, 

291,  292,  308,  321,  334. 
Manners  in  autobiography,  105. 
Mantovani,  Professor,  127. 
Marbot,  Baron  de,  22,  217,  323,  324, 

540,  368. 
Margot,  la  reine,  204. 
Marmont,  22,  136,  332,  338,  368. 
Marmontel,  48,  146,  147,  162,  204,  309, 

323,  339,  401. 
Marriage,  ideals  in,  297,  305,  310. 
Martineau,  Harriet,  143, 171,  206,  215, 

216,  218,  225,  256,  260,  270,  282,  285, 

286,  348,  349^51,  368,  376,  386,  392, 
395. 

Mathematical  faculty  in  autobio- 
graphy, 120,  195. 

McCabe,  Rev.  Joseph,  78,  149. 

Mediaeval  pietists,  240-249. 

Melancholia,  278,  280. 

Memoire,  the  term,  21 ;  varieties  of, 
21  ff. 

Memory  in  relation  to  genius,  226; 
in  sexes,  223;  first,  21^-222,  259. 

Methodist  movement,  240. 

Mettemich,  136. 

Meynard,  Barbier  de,  407. 

Military  autobio.zraphy,  131,  133,  195. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  30,^48,  54,  79, 146, 
147,  171,  206,  219,  224,  257,  277,  286, 
296,  297,  312,  336,  372,  373,  374,  376, 
380,  390. 

Milton,  John,  221,  233. 

Misch,  Georg,  23,  31  n.,  374. 

Misinterpreted  observation,  5,  120, 
250,  267,  380,  396. 

Modesty  in  genius,  3.36-339. 

Mommsen,  Theodor,  34, 128. 

Monluc,  B.  de,  24,  74, 130-133,  138, 140, 


194,  204,  206,  274,  290,  323,  343,  3C8, 
383,  402. 

Montbrun,  le  marquis  de,  20. 

Montelupo,  R.  da,  399. 

Montesquieu,  349,  365. 

Montpensier,  Mile,  de,  48,  51,  54,  154, 
156,  171,  177,  194,  204,  225,  256,  306, 
308,  318,  342,  376. 
;  "  Monumentum  Ancyranum,"  34,  37, 
I      39. 

Moods,  61,  382. 
.  Moore,  Thomas,  Diary, 58 ;  "Life  of 

Byron,"  17. 
j  Morellet,  I'Abbe,  178, 258, 319, 323,  387. 

Morley.  Henry,  on  Cardan,  84, 89,  93, 
I       108,  119,  123,  127,  283. 

Morrison,  James,  on  Gibbon,  54, 304. 
!  Morselli,  Enrico,  "  Suicide,"  282,  286. 
!  "  Mot  d'Enigme,"  le,  249. 
I  Motteville,  Madame  de,  22,  156,  204. 
!  Movements,  religious,  234,  235. 
I  Mlinsterberg,  Hugo,  93. 
1  Murisier,  on  "  Les  Maladies  du  Sen- 
I      timent  Religieux,"  265. 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  17. 
;  Mysticism,  245,  253,  255. 
I  Mystics,  208. 

Xapoleon,  273,  293,  323,  324. 

Napoleonic  group,  22, 183;  character- 
istics, 22. 

Nationality  of  autobiographers, 
chapter  xi. 

Nature,  attitude  towards.  202-205. 

Naude,  G.,  84,  89,  92,  93,  115. 

Nazianzen,  Gregory,  374. 

Nebuchadnezzar,  34. 

Nehemiah,  Book  of,  36. 

Nervous  systems  of  autobiographers, 
99,  100,  115. 

Neurologists,  264. 

Neuropaths,  122. 

Neurosis,  genius  and,  382,  391,  393, 
397. 

Neurotic  temperament,  29,  377. 

Newcastle,  Duchess  of,  308,  309,  313, 
395. 

Newman,  Francis,  333. 

Newman,  John  Henry,  49,  259,  332, 
334,  360. 

Newton,  John.    See  Bibliography. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  119,  120. 

Newton,  Thomas,  300. 


448 


INDEX 


Ney,  Mar^chale,  22. 

Niceron,  B.,  115. 

Nightmares,  recurrent,  in  autobio- 
graphers,  216. 

Night-terrors  in  children,  215,  219. 

Non-religious  conversion  pheno- 
mena, 254. 

Nordau,  Max,  8. 

Norm,  The,  231. 

Normal  line,  the  elusive,  377. 

North,  Roger,  205,  220,  221,  301,  369. 

Novelists,  as  autobiographers,  193. 

Novelists,  value  to,  of  autobiogra- 
phy, 170-172. 

Novels  and  the  autobiography,  chap- 
ter ix. 

Oberkirch,  Madame  d',  383. 

Objective  cast  of  mind,  32,  67. 

Objective  first  memories,  217,  219. 

Objective  memoirs,  22,  23,  35. 

Objectivity  of  ancient  literature,  31, 
32. 

Observation,  cases  of  misinter- 
preted, 5,  120,  250,  267,  380,  306. 

Occidental  attitudes  contrasted,  362. 

Oliphant,  Mrs.,  14,  225,  280-282,  321, 
376,  40: 

Omens,  9     122, 125,  127,  174,  353. 

Oritiitai  attitude,  361-363. 

Oriental  wisdom,  what  is  meant  by, 
362,  363. 

Origins  of  autobiography,  31. 

Ousama  ib'n  Mounkidh,  162, 359, 402. 

Ovid,  "  The  Art  of  Love,"  374. 

Pain,  borne  by  autobiographers,  395. 

Paradin,  G.,  133. 

Paris,  of  autobiographers,  203. 

Pascal,  Blaise,  119,  120. 

Pasquier,  136,  226. 

Passion,  rare  in  autobiography,  305. 

Pathological  view  of  genius,  10,  379; 
of  the  visionary,  253,  336, 366 ;  of  re- 
ligion, 229,  253,  254. 

Patricius,  243,  244,  249,  272,  273. 

Pattison,  Mark,  146,  221,  263,  368,  386. 

Paulinus,  P.,  14,  41,  81,  241,  243,  303, 
374. 

Pearson,  J.,  235,  300. 

Pellican,  Dr.  C,  177. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  58,  66, 178,  205. 

«' Perdita,"  67,  328-331. 


Person,  the  first,  narratives  in,  148. 

Personal  records,  40. 

Personality  in  autobiography,  144; 
interest  in  by  French  autobiogra- 
phers, 202. 

Peters,  F.  P.,  on  Nippur,  34. 

Petitot  and  Mommerqu6,  Collection, 
Appendix  B. 

Petrarca,  F.,  59,  198, 342,  389,  392,  393. 

Petronius,  270. 

Phenomena,  conversion,  cliapter 
xiii. 

Philosophers  as  autobiographers, 
193. 

Philosophy,  autobiographers'  atti- 
tude toward,  28. 

Physicians,  118,  121. 

Pietists,  mediaeval,  240  ;  17th  cen- 
tury, 235. 

Plato,  33. 

Platter,  T.,  171,  177,  194,  208,  298,  372, 
387,  395. 

Plutarch,  349. 

Poe,  E.  A.,  149. 

Poetical  autobiographies,  374,  375, 

Poets  as  autobiographers,  193. 

Police  novel,  149. 

Police  memoir,  149. 

Political  memoirs,  35,  136, 194. 

Pompadour,  La  Marquise  de,  147, 153, 
323. 

Pope,  Alexander,  408. 

Porr6,  Branda,  104,  317. 

Poverty  in  autobiography,  171. 

Precocious  piety,  367. 

Precocity  in  intellectual  develop- 
ment, 271. 

Priestley,  Dr.  J.,  216, 

Pringle,  W.,  252. 

Prisoners,  151  ff. 

Profession  of  autobiographers,  chap- 
ter xi;  effects  of,  slight,  195. 

Proportion,  increased  sense  of,  in 
autobiography,  59. 

Prudentius,  A.  C,  41,  374. 

Psalmanazar,  G.,  49,  66,  71,  72,  343. 

Psychical  Research  Society,  119. 

Psychological  data  in  autobiogra- 
phy, 4,  5;  Ribot  on,  10,  11,  12,  176. 

Psychologists,  their  methods  d  pri- 
ori, 164,  407. 

Psychology  of  autobiography,  26  ff.; 
individual,  92,  380. 


INDEX 


449 


Quacks,  71,  72. 

Quakers,  characteristics  in  autobio- 
graphy, 138,  181,  184,  235  ff.,  241. 

Quality  of  the  witness,  13,  232. 

Quantity,  counts  in  statistics,  195.    . 

"  Questionnaire,"  the,  234. 

Quetelet,  "  Sur  I'Homme,"  9,  &4, 176, 
196. 

Quietism  in  France,  239. 

Quinault,  Mile.,  179. 

Quinet,  E.,  216,  263,  264,  286,  367, 
387. 

•'  Quintessential "  people,  377. 

"  Quintessential  "  tjrpes,  171,  256. 

Rapp,  22. 

Rawlinson.  Sir  H.,  34. 

Reaction  after  conversion,  260,  261. 

Reade,  Charles,  "The  Cloister  and 
the  Hearth,"  1G8. 

Reasons  for  writing  autobiography, 
27,  47,  145,  193. 

Religion,  chapter  xiii. 

Religious  cases,  normal,  255  ;  abnor- 
mal, 252. 

Renan,  Ernest,  36,  214,254,  256,  263, 
264,  280,  338,  351, 354,  367,  373, 376, 380, 
388,  393,  401. 

Reresby,  J.    See  Bibliography. 

Retz,  de,  65,  66,  256,  305,  322. 

Reviewers,  The  Critical,  75. 

Revolutionary  group,  French,  183  ; 
Italian,  186,  276,  278. 

Ribot,  T.,  83,  122, 145,  230,  287,  304,  392, 
393,  397 ;  "  Psychologie  des  Senti- 
ments," 10,  88,  175;  "  Essai  sur 
rimagination  Creatrice,"  10. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  171,  178,327,  330. 

Richelieu.  Cardinal,  22,  379. 

Richet,  Charles,  112. 

Richter,  J.  P.,  68,  207,  214,  220-222, 
365. 

Rimini,  22. 

Ristori,  A.,  195,  219,  339,  368. 

Roberts,  Lord,  385. 

Roberts,  S.,  123,  263,  272,368. 

Robinson,  M.,  "  Perdita,"  67, 195, 327- 
331. 

Rocheblave,  Samuel,  "  George  Sand 
et  sa  Fille,"  55. 

Rochefort,  le  comte  de,  20. 

Rodin,  117. 

Rohan,  le  chevalier  de,  20. 


Roland,  Madame,  48, 180-181,  298,  343, 
348,  372,  389,  395. 

Roman  memoirs,  41. 

Romilly,  Samuel,  270,  309,  385. 

Romney,  George,  103. 

Rossetti,  W.  M.    See  Bibliography. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  17, 25  flf.,  30,45, 48,61  ff. , 
74,  77,  79,  81,  82,  86,  106, 129, 137,  141- 
143,  180,  183,  185,  200,  204,  206,  207, 
214,  219,  227,  289,  301,  312,  327,  328, 
337,  340-342,  364,  376,  380,  390,  394, 
403. 

Rovigo,  22. 

Rufus,  Rutilius,  41. 

Ruskin,  John,  214,  216,  219,  309,  378, 
403. 

Russell,  Lord,  59. 

Russian  affairs  as  affecting  Tolstoi, 
262. 

Rutty,  Dr.  John.  See  Bibliography. 

Saint-Lambert,  179. 

Saint-Simon,  Due  de,  12,  22,  23,  58, 

67,  134-136, 138,  140,  146,  204,  254. 
Sainte-Beuve,  C.  A.,  as  critic  of  the 

memoir,  6,  7. 
Salimbene,  Fra,  171,  248,  252,  367,  402. 
Salvini,  T.,  195,  219,  339,  368. 
Sand,  George,  48,  51,  53,  68,  81,  180, 

199,  216,  217,  219,  224,  225,  258,  285, 

288,  290,  335,  336,  353,  354,  372,  403  ; 

"  Histoire  de  ma  Vie,"  51,  54,   69, 

199,  224,  289,  345-348. 
Sandraz,  Courtilz  de,  20,  157,  201. 
Sansom,  Oliver,  235. 
Sar,  Peladan,  72. 
Savoie,  Louise  de. 
Scaligers,  the,  84,  111,  177. 
Scandalous  memoirs,  15,  16. 
Scaurus,  Emilius,  41,  130. 
Schimmelpenninck,  M.  A.,  219. 
Scientific  method  in  autobiography, 

80,  »45. 
Scientists   as   autobiographers,  81, 

184,  193,  364. 
Scott,  Job,  216,  218,  219,  235,  252. 
Scott,   Sir  Walter,  58,  159,  162,  217, 

334,  372,  392. 
Scott,  W.  B.,  215,  220-222,  254,  283. 
Self-esteem,  chapter  xvii,  335,  345. 
Self-studies,  24 ff.,  30,  79,  81. 
Semi-spurious  autobiography,  19,  20. 
Sentimental  cast  of  mind,  200. 


450 


INDEX 


Sentimentality  in  German  autobio- 
graphy, 68,  207-208. 
Serenity   of  the   free-thinker,  254, 

259,  260. 
Seriousness  of  autobiography,  11,  44, 

257. 
Settembrini,  Italian  literature,  90. 
Severus,  35. 
Sevign6,  Madame  de,  59, 158,  204, 313, 

322. 
Sex  relations,  chapter  xv. 
Shaftesburj',  Earl  of,  395. 
Shelley,  P.  B.,  325,382. 
Sincerity,  28,  chapter  iv,  78,  85,  232. 
Singularity,  affectation  of,  72. 
Sixteenth  century  in  autobiography, 

184. 
Smiles,  S.,  363. 
Sociological  data  in  autobiography, 

172. 
Socrates,  126,  331,  3^4,  378. 
Soldier  autobiography,  194,  195,  368. 
Sorelli,G.,219, 
Southey,  Robert,  219. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  14,  48,  81,  97,  145, 

199,  215,  216,  218,  219,  221,  257,  270, 

309,  315,  335,  337,  345,  364,  370,  373, 

383. 
Spohr,  L.,  208,  216. 
Spurious  autobiography,  19,  20. 
Staal-Delaunay,  IVIadame  de,  79,  205. 

225,  282,  298,^314,  319-321,  348,  376, 

386. 
Standard  for  autobiography  ideal, 

197. 
Stapleton,  Thomas,  374. 
Starbuck,  E.  S.,  230,  232,  233,  253,  255. 
Statesman  autobiography,  136,  193. 
Statisticians,  early  psychological,  9. 
Statistics,  172-173,  195. 
Stein,  Frau  von,  297,  382. 
Stephen,  Leslie,  129. 
Stevenson.  R.  L.,  on  Pepys,  66. 
Stilling,  Jung,  207,  208,  254,  298,  339, 

364. 
Stirredge,  Elizabeth,  235,  252. 
Subjective  first  memories,  215,  218. 
Subjective  memoirs,  23,  182ff.,  194, 

241, 
Subjectivity  in  literature,  26, 404, 405. 
Sue,  E.,  151. 
Suicide,    child,    283    ff.  ;     impulse 

toward,  283-287. 


Sulla,  Lost  Commentaries  of,  35,  44, 

74,  91,  130. 
Sully,  Due  de,  21,  22,  133,  205,  368. 
Suneha,  33. 

Supernatural,  the,  93,  112,  174,  266. 
Superstitions,  118,  177,  258,  271,  274, 

353. 
Suso,  Heinrich,  81,  208,  241,  244,  246- 

249,  275. 
Swift,  J.,  148,  319. 
Symonds,  J.  A.,  5,  90,  120,  123,  165, 

219,  250,  263,  272,  284,  286. 

Tacitus,  256,  349;  «'  Agricola,"  40. 
Taine,  H.,  79,  80,  176,  207. 
Talleyrand,  22,  136,  256,  326. 
Tartaglia,  Xicolo,  105,  142,  181. 
Taswell,  William.  See  Bibliography. 
Taylor,  Colonel  M.,  217,  353,  368. 
Temperament,  the  lymphatic,  388. 
Temperaments,  different,  117. 
Teresa,  49,  66,  77, 129, 138.  219, 228,  232, 

237,  241,  243,  244,  246,  249,  254,  256, 

264,  275,  311,  367,  401. 
Terrors,  night-terrors  in  children, 

215,  219. 
Terry,  Ellen,  292,  293,  368. 
*'  Testimony,  bearing,"  138. 
Thackeray,  319. 
"  Theophrastus  Such,"  44. 
Theosophv,  261. 
Thou,  J.  A.  de,  17,  35,  89,  91,  127,  221, 

313,  368,  370,  372. 
Thrales,  the,  378. 
Tilly,  A.  du,  15. 

Timur,  22,  273,  274,  355,  368,  383. 
Tiraboschi,  on  Cardan,  84,  86,  87. 
Tobias,  Book  of.  36. 
Tolstoi,  49,  262,  263,  284,  286,  300,  368. 
Tone,  T.  W.,  309. 
Trajan,  35. 
Trelat's  Lists,  379. 
Trenck,  F.  de,  49,  151,  155,  340,  368. 
TroUope,  Anthony,  171,  336,  385. 
Troppman,  151. 
Truth,  feeling  for,  in  autobiography, 

49,  337. 
Tupper,  233. 

Turgenev,  Ivan,  179,  222. 
Tusser,  T.,  374. 
Tycho  Brahe,  119. 
Tj-pes,  search  for,  294 ;  three  great, 

85,140. 


INDEX 


451 


Ulfeldt,  L.  C,  155,  256,  308,  316,  388, 

395. 
Una,  33. 

Unconscious  self -revelation,  57. 
Unhappiness,  252,  276,  277,  287. 

Valois,  M.  de,  26,  171,  225,  256,  268, 
291,  292,  402. 

Valory,  Chevalier  de,  180. 

Vambery,  A.,  340,  365,  372. 

Vanity,  28,  150,  339,  340,  343,  344. 

Van  Laun,  Henri,  160. 

Vaux,  Henry,  20. 

Vennar,  R.,  206. 

Vesalius,  Andrea,  111,  142, 181. 

Vespasian,  35. 

Vice,  attitude  toward,  16,  337. 

Vico,  81,  198,  219,  389. 

Vidocq,  E.  F.,  149,  151,  342,  383,  399. 

Villehardouin,  Geoffrey  de,  22. 

Villeroy,  Seigneur  de,  23. 

Visions,  122, 123,  174,  242,  245-248,  251, 
267,  270,  272,  273,  275,  396. 

Visualizing  faculty,  120-122. 

Viterbi,  Luc-Antonio.  See  Biblio- 
graphy. 

Voltaire,  59,  353,  365,  378. 

Vordan,  le  comte  de,  20. 

Wallace,  A.  R.,  216,  218,  220,  221. 
"Walters,  W.  G.,  on  Cardan,  84,  88, 
91. 


Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry,  "Lady  Rose'8 

Daughter,"  162. 
Watson,  «'  Life  of  Fox,"  54. 
Weiniger,  Otto,  26,  223. 
Werther,the  conception  of  Goethe's, 

265. 
Wesley,  John,  75. 
Wesleyanism,  240. 

Wharton,  Edith,  "  The  Valley  of  De- 
cision," 167. 
Whistler,  J.  McN.,  103. 
Whiston,  W.    See  Bibliography. 
TVTiite,  J.  Blanco,  252,  254,  280. 
AYhitefield,  G.,  75,  237,  262. 
Wilde,  Oscar,  72. 
Witness,  quality  of,  considered,  13, 

232. 
Wolseley,  Viscount,  132, 195,  368. 
Women   as    autobiographers,    225  ; 

memory  in,  223-225;  position  of, 

310-312. 
Woolman,  J.,  235,  252. 
Wordsworth,  William,  370,  373-375, 

382,  387. 
Work,  methods  of,  chapter  xviii. 

Xenophon,  Anabasis,  32. 

Young,  Arthur.    See  Bibliography. 
Youth  not  always  joyous,  383. 

Zuanne  da  Coi,  Messer,  105. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 


This  book  is  due  on  the  date  iridicated  below,  or  at  the 
expiration  of  a  definite  period  after  the  date  of-borrowin' 
as  provided  by  the  rules  of  the  Library        ^'-^-r>p/.,oi  ,-, 
rangement  with  the  Librarian  in  charp^'^ 


DATE   BORROWED 


DATE   DUE 


f-i 


5022064 


^2.0 


t)^^ 

OOp.2-.: 


o 


O 

o  ^ 


ex: 

00 


:.1.' 


.^iia^iiJiH 


>um 


mim'{ 


iirr\mi'V 


imw 


ii 


t-i  -:  -» X  * 


f»t 


!  ':;ti 


